The twentieth century

HANDBOUND
AT THE

UNIVERSITY OF

THE

NINETEENTH
CENTUBY

/l/VD AFTER

XIX-

.4 MONTHLY REVIEW

EDITED BY JAMES KNOWLES

VOL. LVI
JULY-DECEMBER 1904

NEW YOEK
LEONARD SCOTT PUBLICATION CO.

LONDON: SPOTTISWOODE & CO. LTD., PRINTERS

AP

A

T9

CONTENTS OF VOL. LVI

PACK

OUB PITIABLE MILITARY SITUATION. By Colonel Lonsdale Hale. . 1

COMPULSOBY EDUCATION AND COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING. By

Henry Birchenougli ....... 20

How JAPAN REFORMED HERSELF. By 0. Eltzbacher . . .28

THE WOMEN OF KOREA. By Lieut. -Colonel G. J. B. Gliinicke . . 42

THE POPE AND THE NOVELIST : A REPLY TO MR. RICHARD BAGOT. By

the Bev. Ethelred L. Taunton . . . . .46

TRAMPS AND WANDERERS. By Mrs. Hlggs . • . .55

EDUCATIONAL CONCILIATION: AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY. By D. C.

Latlibury ...... .67

A PRACTICAL VIEW OF THE ATHAN ASIAN CREED. By the Bight Rev.

Bishop Welldon ....... 75

THE VIRGIN-BIRTH. By Blade Butler . . . . .84

INVISIBLE RADIATIONS. By Antonia Zimmern . . . .88

MEDICATED AIR : A SUGGESTION. By Dr. William Eivart . . 97

THE POLITICAL WOMAN IN AUSTRALIA. By Vida Goldstein . . 105

THE CAPTURE OF LHASA IN 1710. By Demetrius C. Boulger . . 113

ISCHIA IN JUNE. By Adeline Paulina Irby .... 119

CONCEBNING SOME OF THE ' ENFANTS TROUVES ' OF LITERATURE. By the

Lady Currie . . . . . . . * . 126

INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS AND THE PRESENT WAR. By Sir John

Macdonell 142

LAST MONTH :

(1) By Sir Wemyss Beid . , . 152, 319, 499, 686, 855, 1033

(2) By Edward Dicey ..... 163, 330, 510

(3) By Walter Frewen Lord . . . . 867, 1044
JAPAN AND THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WAR WITH RUSSIA. By Baron

Satyematsu ........ 173

OUR BI-CENTENARY ON THE ROCK. By Bonald McNeill . . . 181

BRITISH SHIPPING AND FISCAL REFORM. By the Marquis of Graham . 189

THE LIBERAL PRESS AND THE LIBERAL PARTY. By W. J. Fisher . 199

THE ETHICAL NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY. By Prince KropotJcin . 207

THE HARVEST OF THE HEDGEROWS. By Walter Baymond . . 227

THE UNIONIST FREE TRADERS. By J. St. Loe Strachey . . . 236

THE POPE AND CHURCH Music — A REJOINDER. By Bichard Bagot . 247

To EXPLORE ARABIA BY BALLOON. By the Bev. John M. Bacon . . 251
SOME MAXIMS OF THE LATE LORD CALLING AND BULWER. By the Bight

Hon. Sir Henry Drummond-Wolff . .... 262

PEPYS AND MERCER. By Norman Pearson .... 269

SOME INDIAN PORTRAITS. By the late Sir William Battigan . . 286
WHAT is THE USE OF GOLD DISCOVERIES ? By the Bight Hon. Leonard

Courtney ........ 299

PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WORKING-CLASS CHILDREN. By Dr. T. J.

Macnamara ........ 307

GIFTS. By C. E. WJieeler ....... 312

How RUSSIA BROUGHT ON WAR — A COMPLETE HISTORY. By Baron

Suyematsu ....... 341, 521

THE COMING REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA. By Carl Joubert . . . 364

iv CONTENTS OF VOL. LVI

PAGB

THE EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE AS A EUROPEAN COLONY. By Sir

Charles Eliot ....... 370

FREE THOUGHT IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. By W. H. Mattock . 386
THE DIFFICULTY OF PREACHING SERMONS. By the Right Rev. Bishop

Welldon 402

SHALL WE EESTORE THE NAVIGATION LAWS ? By Benjamin Taylor . 418

THE AMERICAN WOMAN — AN ANALYSIS. By H. B. Marriott-Watson . 433

MY FRIEND THE FELLAH. By Sir Walter Mieville . . . 443

COLLEY GIBBER'S ' APOLOGY.' By H. B. Irving .... 451
THE PINNACLE OF PROSPERITY — A NOTE OF INTERROGATION. By J. W.

Cross ......... 469

THE POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL SITUATION IN AUSTRALIA. By Tom

Mann ......... 475

A CHAPTER ON OPALS. By H. Kershaw Walker .... 492

ROME OR THE EEFORMATioN. By the Lady Wimborne . . . 543

THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST CONGRESS. By J. Keir Hardie . . 559
MR. HARRISON'S HISTORICAL ROMANCE. By the Bight Hon. John

Morley ........ 571

OUR NAVAL STRENGTH AND THE NAVY ESTIMATES. By the Bight Hon.

Lord Brassey .......

THE GERMAN ARMY SYSTEM AND How IT WORKS. By J. L. Bashford .
ARE REMARKABLE PEOPLE* REMARKABLE -LOOKING ? — AN EXTRAVAGANZA.

By the Lady Currie . . . . . . . .022

THE BY-LAW TYRANNY AND RURAL DEPOPULATION — A PERSONAL

EXPERIENCE. By Wilfrid Scawen Blunt . . . . 643

THE LAND OF JARGON. By Helena Frank ..... 652

A REMINISCENCE OF COVENTRY PATMORE. By Dr. Paul Chapman . 668

THE NEXT LIBERAL MINISTRY. By Henry W. Lucy . . . 675
THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF NEUTRALS: PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S

PROPOSED CONFERENCE. By Sir John Macdonell . . . 697

ENGLAND, GERMANY, AND AUSTRIA. By Sir Rotuland Blennerhassett . 707

MOTOR TRAFFIC AND THE PUBLIC ROADS. By Sir Walter Gilbey . 723
FREE THOUGHT IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. By the Rev. Prebendary

Whitworth ....... \ 737

MR. MALLOCK AND THE BISHOP OF . WORCESTER. By the Rev. H.

Maynard Smith ....... 746

THE EXHIBITION OF EARLY ART IN SIENA. By Langion Douglas . 756

THE LITERATURE OF FINLAND. By Hermione Ramsden . . . 772

TABLE-TALK. By Mrs. Frederic Harrison .... 790

SIR ROBERT WILSON : A FORGOTTEN ADVENTURER. By the Right Hon.

Sir Herbert Maxioell . . . . . . 796

JAPANESE EMIGRANTS. By Wilson Crewdson .... 813

WOMAN IN CHINESE LITERATURE. By Herbert A. Giles . . . 820
THE CHECK TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN THE UNITED STATES. By Frank

Foxcroft ........ 833

THE RUSSIAN SOLDIER. By Carl Joubert ..... 842

GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY: A CONVERSATION WITH COUNT VON

BULOW, GERMAN CHANCELLOR. By J. L. Bashford . . _J373

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S OPPORTUNITIES. By Sidney Loio . . /~*882

WHAT THE FRENCH DOCTORS SAW. By Lady Priestley . . . 892
FREE THOUGHT IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: A REJOINDER. By TT.

Mallock . . . . . . . 905

HYMNS — ' ANCIENT ' AND ' MODERN.' By the Countess of Jersey . . 925

THE CENSUS OF INDIA. By J. D. Rees . . . . . 938

THE DECLINE OF THE SALON. By Miss Rose M. Bradley . . 950

HARA-KIRI : ITS REAL SIGNIFICANCE. By Baron Suyematsu . . 960

THE CORELESS APPLE. By Sampson Morgan .... 966

THE RHODES BEQUEST AND UNIVERSITY FEDERATION. By J. Churton

Collins ...... . 970

PALMISTRY IN CHINA. By Herbert A. Giles .... 985

QUEEN CHRISTINA'S PICTURES. By His Excellency the Stvedish Minister 989

ONE LESSON FROM THE BECK CASE. By Sir Robert Anderson . . 1004

THE GERMAN NAVY LEAGUE. By Dr. Louis Elkind . . 1012

THE RE -FLOW FROM TOWN TO COUNTRY. By Sir Robert Hunter . 323

THE

NINETEENTH
CENTURY

AND AFTER

XX

No. CCCXXIX— JULY 1904

OUR PITIABLE MILITARY SITUATION

THE eight signatories of the Majority Report of the Royal Commis-
sion on the Militia and Volunteers have no reason to be dissatisfied
with the reception of their Report by the public, presuming, of course,
that the utterances of the Press may be taken as indicative thereof.
The record of their work is in four Blue-books. The first gives, in
seventy-eight pages, the two Royal Warrants creating the Com-
mission, the Majority Report (with two schedules), a short memo-
randum by Lord Grenfell, a long memorandum of twenty-six pages
by Colonel O'Callaghan-Westropp, two minority reports contributed
by three of the Commissioners, and two short appendices. The
second and third books give the minutes of evidence, which com-
prise no fewer than 24,150 questions and answers ; the fourth gives
275 pages of close reading in the form -of appendices. In these appen-
dices are not only returns showing numbers, cost, &c., but among
them is a huge amount of evidence given in writing by societies
existing among the Auxiliary Forces ; by witnesses who had appeared
befo^ Jommission, and who desired to amplify their verbal

evidence ; and, finally, a summary of answers to a circular of questions
VOL. LVI— No. 329 B

2 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY July

sent to the commanding officer of each Militia and Volunteer unit.
It is practically a third volume of evidence. And within forty-eight
hours the verdict is pronounced, and it is almost, but not quite,
unanimously one of condemnation.

But the jury were only human beings ; and, therefore, real judicial
consideration of the evidence on which the Report is based was
obviously out of the question in this short time ; so it necessarily
follows that the adverse judgment must have been arrived at on some
grounds quite different from the evidence on which the Commissioners
formed their opinions. And with the condemnation came an amount
of ' drubbing ' the Commissioners that reminds me of the old advice :
* If you have a bad case, don't reply to your opponent's arguments,
but abuse him.'

A few specimens, taken from some of the London daily papers,
and all written, be it remembered, almost immediately after the
four volumes came into the hands of the respective writers, and
before there was time to do more than give the very hastiest .glance
over this enormous mass of evidence, are illustrative of the spirit of
this condemnation. ' A more inadequate document of its kind has
rarely been published.' ' Its [the Commission's] head was turned
from the beginning by the spectacle of a Cabinet bowing before
Lord Esher's triumvirate.' * The Report reads like the crudest
production of the most sensational journalist of the Jingo school.'
The Report is an ' impudent document,' and the Commissioners
were guilty of a ' sublime piece of audacity.' The Commissioners
' did not know very clearly what they were about.' The Com-
mission was not ' very strongly constituted,' and when, a week
later, Mr. Arnold-Forster stated in the House of Commons that the
Government did not intend to endorse the recommendation of the
Commission so far as adopting conscription, we read of the ' absurd
conscription scheme ' — a Commission of ' military officers and theo-
risers.' ' To say that it [the Report] has fallen flat would be to put
the case very mildly. As a matter of fact, it has met with con-
temptuous and almost unqualified condemnation.' Evidently it is on
some very tender toe that the Commission has trodden ; and to the
injured toe a clue is found in the allegation that the Commission has
acted ultra vires, and has inquired into and reported on matters not
included in the terms of reference. And we run the quarry to ground
in the first paragraph of the leading article of the Times, which paper,
with one or two others, has kept aloof from the shouting crowd.
' The Report of the Royal Commission on the Militia and Volunteers,
whatever may be thought of its specific proposals, is bound to derive
an historical importance from the fact that it is the first official docu-
ment of the kind to enunciate and endorse the principle of compulsory
military service.'

Yes, it is the recommendation of the adoption of the principle

1904 OUE PITIABLE MILITARY SITUATION 3

that it is the bounden duty of every able-bodied male adult to
take part efficiently, if called on to do so, in the defence of hearths
and homes, that has aroused this outburst of anger and abuse ; and
the wrath exhibited is sure to be intensified by the cool, merciless,
unemotional, and logical process adopted by the Commission in
layirg bare and open to the public gaze the actual and pitiable situa-
tion in which we stand as regards the defence of our homes at the
present time.

And even if this charge, ultra vires, were maintainable, as I hold
it is not, surely the Commission deserves gratitude, not condem-
nation, for telling us what it believes to be the plain truth, and
for endeavouring to awaken the country to the fact that we are,
as regards defence of our homes, living in a fools' paradise. If the
Commissioners are wrong, and our paradise is one not for fools only,
surely it will not be a very difficult task for some of their opponents
to explain to us the errors and fallacies underlying the assertions of
the Commissioners. But, before doing this, there is some work for
them ; they will have to go carefully through the evidence on which
the conclusions that irritate them are based, and they will have to
produce in support of their case evidence as worthy of respect as
that given by the competent witnesses called before the Commis-
sion. The opinions formed by the Commissioners are not mere
theoretical fancies of their own ; they are derived from the evidence
brought before them, and which they have considered judicially. It
is regrettable that a very high-class London paper should write of the
Commissioners : ' Unfortunately, they were too much enamoured of
their hobby to make any serious contributions towards the solution
of the problem presented to them .... the Government have lost
no time in declaring that they will have nothing to do with the scheme.
It would have been unfortunate if the fantastic notion had been
treated with any sort of indulgence.' Why it should be supposed that
with the Dukes of Norfolk and Richmond, the Earl of Derby, Lord
Grrenfell, and their colleagues, compulsory service for home defence is
a ' hobby ' is incomprehensible ; characterising universal service for
home defence, which not one of the dissentient members regards
as totally out of the question, as a ' fantastic notion,' indicates,
on the part of the writer, the possession of an amount of confidence
in his own opinion that few soldiers or sailors who have studied the
subject possess. Had the Report been of a milk-and-water, colourless
character, it would soon have been consigned to the limbo of ephemeral
Blue-books, and no one would have troubled himself to read the
evidence ; but when the eight signatories, known not to be fools, are
held up to sneers and ridicule on the one hand, and the Times, on the
other hand, affirms that the Report is of ' historical importance,' these
eight men are bound to receive their reward, in the certainty that

B 2

4 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

such a peculiar reception is certain to draw to the Report and the
evidence the attention of all thinking men.

The Commissioners were directed to ' inquire into the organisa-
tion, numbers, and terms of service of our Militia and Volunteer
Forces ; and to report whether any, and, if any, what, changes are
required in order to secure that these forces shall be maintained in a
condition of military efficiency and at an adequate strength.' The
Commissioners commenced their inquiry, it may be presumed, with
impartial minds ; but as they were directed to report how to secure
the maintenance of these forces in an efficient condition and in
adequate strength, it was only after ascertaining the functions those
forces would have to fulfil that the inquiry could be further extended.
The Garde Nationale in France was thoroughly efficient in 1870-71 if
it knew enough to be able to defend its own localities ; for the Garde
Mobile, intended to form part of the mobile army, a much higher
standard of efficiency was necessary. A very small staff and but
little equipment were needed for the one ; a highly trained and com-
plete staff and much impedimenta were the necessary requirements
for the other. Similarly as regards the officers and non-commis-
sioned officers ; whilst the Garde Mobile must be complete in these, and
it was only good, well-trained soldiers that could be leaders, their
local influence and position might go very far to counterbalance
professional deficiencies in the Garde Nationale in local defence. Had
I had the honour of being one of the Commissioners, I should have
joined most firmly with my colleagues in demanding this preliminary
information respecting the functions, for there would have recurred
to my mind a lecture delivered at the Royal United Service Institu-
tion by Lieut.-Colonel Eustace Balfour on the 28th of November,
1895, when he spoke as follows :

' Volunteering is, in two respects, similar to the labours of the
Israelites in their efforts to make bricks without straw. The clay we
have of good quality and in sufficient abundance ; but we lack time to
harden it, and money to spend on the more modern appliances for its
manufacture. With the financial side of the question I am not to-day
concerned, I therefore put that aside ; but for the rest we all know
what would be the result if a bricklayer's apprentice were to set him-
self to erect a structure of half-burnt bricks. Not only would that
structure present all the failures of ignorance, but the bricks would be
twisted out of shape, and would have to be remoulded before they
could again advance in the process of manufacture.'

In the course of the discussion that followed, I protested, as a
retired soldier- civilian, as I did later on in an article in this Review,
against the walls for the defence of my own locality being constructed
of bricks of this kind. But Lord Wolseley, who presided at the
lecture and had just become Commander-in-Chief, made, in his
summing-up, a remarkable statement. ' We must remember what

1904 OUR PITIABLE MILITARY SITUATION 5

that force is composed of. We must remember that a very large pro-
portion of the officers in it cannot devote themselves day by day, or
even for some hours during specified weeks in the winter, to learn
what we would like to teach them. We have to take them as they are.
As practical men, if we cannot have a whole loaf we must be contented
to take half. If a man has a gap in his fence and cannot afford to have
an iron gate, he must be prepared to put up with a wooden one. That
is the way in which we must look at the Volunteer force.'

The italics are my own, as elsewhere in this article. We poor
civilians are to be content with walls of half -burnt bricks and gates of
wood. Against this exasperating theory I protested strongly in the
article referred to, and I do so now again. About the same time
Lord Lansdowne, the then Secretary of State for War, stated that
' he was informed on the best authority that there never was a time
when the Volunteer force, in point of discipline and efficiency, stood
higher than at present.' But this is beside the mark, for mere better
than badjs not necessarily good. The Commissioners were appointed
to inquire into efficiency and numbers ; it might be possible that the
other forms of defence in this country are so strong and trustworthy
that walls of ' half-burnt bricks ' and ' gates of wood ' would do very
well, as being ornamental rather than for actual use ; it might be, on
the other hand, that owing to the progress of modern warfare, the
altered conditions of sea warfare, and the huge expansion of the
Empire in the last five years, ' half -burnt bricks ' and ' gates of wood,'
even in the places assigned them, would be about of as little value to
us inhabitants of the British Isles as the Noah's ark in the children's
nursery would have been to Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet in the
days of the Flood. So the Commissioners were bound to ascertain at
the very outset the functions of the forces. If an owner hands over
a racing colt for training, the trainer is not likely to bring him out a
winner if he is left in doubt as to whether the owner intends to run
the colt for a six-furlong race, or the Derby, or the Grand National.

Naturally, therefore, the Commissioners commenced with an
inquiry at the War Office as to the views held there on the subject.
In response they received a document, a memorandum headed : ' The
Organisation of the Auxiliary Forces considered in relation to the
Military Defence of the Empire.' Lieut. -General Sir W. Nicholson,
the then Director-General of Military Intelligence and Mobilisation,
was careful, however, to explain that it was an authoritative expres-
sion of the present views (19th of May, 1903) of the Commander-in-Chief
and the Secretary of State only — i.e., Earl Roberts and Mr. Brodrick.
They then tried to ascertain the views held at the Admiralty on the
subject of invasion, inasmuch as in the War Office memorandum the
Auxiliary Forces were reckoned on in the defence. This information
the Admiralty declined to give, but suggested application to the
Committee of Imperial Defence. So in a dignified letter of the 26th

6 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

of May, signed by the Duke of Norfolk, the Commission asked the
Committee of Defence, of which the Duke of Devonshire was chairman,
two questions :

1. To arrive at a conclusion as to what should be the strength of the Auxiliary
Forces, it is necessary to have an approximate idea of the strength of the in-
vading force which the land forces may be called on to meet. What do the
Committee of Defence consider to be the maximum and minimum limits
between which the strength of the invading force would probably be fixed ?

2. Is it contemplated that the duty of meeting the invading force should fall
mainly on the Auxiliary Forces ? In other words, is the Koyal Commission
justified in believing that the contingency may arise in which the number of
fighting units of the Eegular Army left in the country will be very small ?

These are questions of a kind which would enter into many an
operation of war, and which would need to be answered before arriving
at a decision not only on the conduct of the operations, but also on
the number and kind of the forces to be employed. At the time of
sending in the questions two or three witnesses only besides Sir W.
Nicholson had been under examination ; but nearly a month elapsed
before any reply was received from the Duke of Devonshire, who
then, in a memorandum, calmly informed the Duke of Norfolk that
' the reference to the Royal Commission was not intended to cover an
inquiry into the numbers of either Regular or Auxiliary Forces which
should be maintained for Home Defence or for other services ' ; and
yet the terms of reference distinctly state that the Commission is to
ascertain what changes may be necessary to maintain these forces, not
merely in a condition of military efficiency, but also at an adequate
strength, Mr. Akers-Douglas, the Minister who signed the Royal
Warrant, specifies ' adequate strength ' as one of the two necessary
conditions of the Forces, one of the two objects to be aimed at.
Just two months later, the Duke of Devonshire, another Minister,
says that the consideration of adequacy does not enter into their
work. But by this time the Commission, which had been working
hard, had been collecting most valuable opinions on this same question
of adequacy.

The Duke of Devonshire recommended, however, that the numbers
given in the present mobilisation scheme of the War Office should be
accepted, and, he added, ' it may be assumed that if these forces
should be required to resist an invasion, it might be after a consider-
able portion of the Regular Troops might have left the country.' When
this communication was received, the Commission had entered on the
investigation of other branches of the inquiry, so, apparently, the
numbers given in the mobilisation scheme were not at once asked
for ; but shortly before the autumnal adjournment there came from
the Secretary of the Imperial Defence Committee a letter and a
memorandum, dated the 22nd of July, both of a most remarkable
character. It must be borne in mind that the scope of the inquiry

by the Commission was laid down in a Royal Warrant, in which the
King himself speaks, first gives greeting to each individual member,
and then specifies the task they have to carry out, and in one clause
says : ' Our further will and pleasure is that you do, with as little
delay as possible, report to Us under your hands and seals, or under
the hands and seals of any three or more of you, your opinion upon
the matters herein submitted for your consideration.' The warrant
is signed ' By his Majesty's command. A. Akers-Douglas.' The letter
of the 22nd of July gives as the object in sending the memorandum
the ' defining more clearly the scope of the inquiries to be undertaken,
by the Commission and the Committee respectively. The memoran-
dum warns the Commission that the War Office memorandum origin-
ally furnished to it is ' not to be taken by it as authoritative ' ; and
then follow passages which must be given in extenso :

It appears to the Committee of Imperial Defence that it would be most
unfortunate if the Eoyal Commission should, with necessarily imperfect oppor-
tunities of examining the question, incorporate into its Report an expression of
opinion as to the liability to invasion or as to the strength of the force which
should be maintained for the defence of the United Kingdom or for the other
purposes referred to, which may afterwards be found to be at variance with the
deliberate and authoritative decision of the Committee of Imperial Defence,
whose special function it has been to examine these questions with a full com-
mand of all the sources of information at the disposal both of the Admiralty and
of the War Office.

It appears to the Committee of Imperial Defence that the main object for
which the Royal Commission was appointed was to advise his Majesty's
Government and Parliament, not as to the strength at which the Militia and
Yolunteers should be maintained in the country, but how the establishment of
Militia and Volunteers could be maintained at full efficiency, and at the strength
which may be eventually decided by his Majesty's Government and Parliament,
on the advice of the Committee of Imperial Defence, to be necessary. It is
therefore suggested that the present Mobilisation Scheme should be taken as
the basis on which the Royal Commission should consider this question, as the
principles which they lay down must necessarily be applicable equally to an
establishment which may vary within reasonable limits on either side of
the existing one.

The Commission at once asked the Committee for a copy of the
scheme, and in reply were refused the copy, but were told it would
be sufficient if the figures were taken at 100,000 Militia and 200,000
Volunteers.

What a strange state of affairs is here revealed ! The chairman
of the Defence Committee, in his individual capacity, undertakes to
tell the chairman of a Royal Commission what its duties were, or,
rather, were not, although the King himself has defined them. Then
the Committee further lectures the Commission as to the scope of
their respective inquiries, proceeds to make recommendations for
omissions from the Report, and finally puts to it the conundrum
how to maintain the establishment of the Forces at full efficiency
and at the unknown quantity, x — namely, the strength which at some

8 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

future time is to be determined by the Government and Parliament.
Surely the proper course for the Defence Committee to have taken
was, instead of lecturing the Commission on its duties, to have
obtained from the King a modification of the duties his Majesty had
thought fit to impose on it.

The Commission held on its own way in accordance with the
instructions of his Majesty as conveyed to it in the Royal Warrant,
and has produced in the Report and in the evidence published with
it matter of the highest national value, matter worthy of close and!
very grave consideration.

The first section of the Report should be printed simply as a
broadsheet and be distributed all over the country, in slums and
in palatial residences alike, in the smallest agricultural hamlet and
the busiest mercantile city. The Commission does not argue ; it gives
only plain facts.

' Each of the five great Powers of Europe has abandoned the once
prevalent idea that war is the exclusive business of a limited class,
and has subjected its male population to a thorough training, either
naval or military. Accordingly, each of these nations is to-day
ready to employ in war the greater part of its able-bodied male popu-
lation between certain ages, under the guidance of a specially trained
body of officers and non-commissioned officers. . . . Each of the
great States has also, with a view to war, so organised its material
resources, and in particular its means of communication, that they
may be fully utilised for naval and military purposes from the very
beginning of hostilities .... In a war against any of them Great
Britain would be in one respect at a grave disadvantage. For while
her antagonist by previous organisation would be enabled to devote
to the struggle the greater part of its resources both in men and in
material, Great Britain would not at the beginning have at her dis-
posal more than a fraction of her population, and her material re-
sources could be very imperfectly applied.'

And now as to invasion.

' The perfection of the means of communication, and in foreign
countries, of the control of the State over them, is such that the
concentration of a large force at any port or ports is practicable
within a very short time ; what was formerly a matter of weeks is now
an affair of days, possibly even of hours?

, And then, after speaking of the corresponding development and
changed conditions of naval warfare, the Report continues :

' Naval warfare is always more concentrated and decisive than
land warfare, and the effect of the developments just described is to
intensify these characteristics, while, at the same time, the want of
experience with the new instruments renders it difficult to predict
the issue of a naval conflict. More is staked on a sea fight than ever,

1904 OUR PITIABLE MILITARY SITUATION 9

yet it is harder than ever to foresee the results which the destructive
force of modern weapons may produce.' . . . l It is impossible for us
to shut our eyes to the fact that the next naval war in which this country
may be engaged will be on both sides a great experiment.'

In the next section, the ' scope of the inquiry,' the Commission,
quoting the figures furnished on the one hand by the War Office as
required for home defence 330,000 (including 150,000 mobile troops),
and, on the other, the 300,000 given by the Imperial Defence Com-
mittee, points out, with pitiless logic, that these numbers are irre-
concilable either with reliance solely on the Navy for protection
against invasion, or against a small raid. ' An effective force — in other
words, an army — of the strength proposed to us, can be required only
to meet an invasion. Either invasion is possible or it is not. If not,
no military force is required for home defence, and our inquiry could
hardly serve any practical purpose. But if invasion is possible, it
can be undertaken only by one of the great European Powers, which
possess forces highly trained and ready to move in large numbers at
the shortest notice.'

And then they proceed to give their interpretation of the meaning
of the words in the King's command, ' the condition of military
efficiency ' in the Auxiliary Forces.

' The Militia exist chiefly, and the Volunteers solely, for the pur-
pose of resisting a possible invasion of the United Kingdom, which
would be attempted only by a first-rate army. This purpose will not
be fulfilled merely by a brave or creditable, but unsuccessful, resist-
ance ; it requires the defeat of the enemy. The standard of efficiency
to be aimed at it is therefore not a matter of opinion ; the conditions of
war and of the battlefield must be met, and no lower standard can be laid
down?

The Commission had, in the absence of more authoritative infor-
mation, to construct for itself the foundation on which to base its
inquiry as to the standard of efficiency, and as to the numbers of the
Auxiliary Forces required to carry out their functions ; and on the
expert evidence laid before them they came to the conclusion that
under certain circumstances it was quite possible that the function
that these forces would have to fulfil would be the meeting and crushing
an invading hostile force of 150,000 picked men, fully and admirably
staffed, trained to the highest point of efficiency for acting in close
country, led by officers and non-commissioned officers of high individual
capacity in all ranks, and, I may add on my own account, possessing
from highest to lowest a thorough knowledge of the country, obtained
by previous close study of our own Ordnance maps, of which, we may
be sure, the invaders would bring with them an ample supply, and on
which doubtless they had previously carried out an infinite variety
of war games.

It seems to be generally overlooked that no Continental Power

10 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY July

would strike a blow on land in this country without having first pre-
pared a weapon absolutely reliable for the purpose, and that the special
preparation of the force, as regards individual efficiency, can be carried
on quietly and without observation, in the normal training which each
officer, non-commissioned officer, and private undergoes in foreign
armies. The same rule holds good with regard to the preparation of
any naval and sea transport that might be required for an invasion.
Under the well-thought-out and perfect systems that prevail on the
Continent, the only order required for changing from complete passivity
to action, immediate and at full power, is ' Go ahead ' ; everyone at
once takes his allotted place in the huge human machine, and the
whole machine at once starts working, smoothly, rapidly, and without
any special effort. When I hear of time available to make prepara-
tions to meet a threatened invasion, the bit of information I once
picked up from a subaltern in the German army recurs to my mind.
' I have received and returned,' he said, ' the Red-Book specifying my
work on the order to mobilise ; I go to Metz to bring up the Reservists,
and in the book I have been informed of the railway stations at which
we shall stop during the journey, and the number of cups of coffee
that will be ready for us at certain places.' And that implies a good
deal more — namely, that some one or other, possibly a civilian at some
small station, knows now that he also must be ready, on the word
* Mobilise,' to supply the definitively prescribed number of cups of
coffee.

The Commissioners then set to work to ascertain the present con-
dition of the Auxiliary Forces, the distance they are below this necessary
standard of efficiency, and the possibility of their ever reaching it ; and
after a searching inquiry, eight out of the twelve found themselves
compelled eventually to arrive at the conclusion embodied in the final
paragraph of the Report, and which has aroused such a tempest of
unreasoning condemnation : the conclusion that ' Your Majesty's
Militia and Volunteer forces have not at present either the strength
or the military efficiency required to enable them to fulfil the functions
for which they exist ; that their military efficiency would be much
increased by the adoption of the measures set forth in the fourth
section of this report, which would make them valuable auxiliaries
to the regular Army ; but that a home defence army capable, in the
absence of the whole or the greater portion of the regular forces, of
protecting this country against invasion can be raised and maintained
only on the principle that it is the duty of every citizen of military age
and sound physique to be trained for the national defence, and to take
part in it should emergency arise."1

And although three of the Commissioners furnish other reports,
all three recommend compulsory service of some kind or other. Sir
Ralph Knox would fix the quota for both Militia and Volunteers, and
if this were not furnished for the year, the whole quota next year

1904 OUR PITIABLE MILITARY SITUATION 11

should be furnished as Militia from all men in their twenty-first year,
and thenceforward for Militia only, the schemes of Volunteer Service
ceasing to exist.

Colonels Satterthwaite and Dalmahoy, both Volunteer officers,
recommend the principle of compulsion, but not universal service.
They say :

The principle of compulsion having been accepted, we think that every effort
should be made to raise the necessary troops by voluntary means, but that the
man who neglects his opportunity of learning the work necessary to enable him
to take his part in the defence of the country in his earlier years, should be liable
to compulsion at the age of twenty.

I presume that, by an oversight, the words ' in his earlier years '
are misplaced, and are intended to follow the word ' learning.' Then
comes :

To attain this [what ?] every male inhabitant who is not a member of one of
the Forces of the Crown, should, on a certain date in the year following his
twentieth birthday, be required to attend and register his name and address. If
exempted from any of the causes allowed by law, he would then lodge his
exemption certificate. If not, he would either :

1. Be allotted to the Militia or Volunteers, according to any deficiency there
might be in the units comprised in the Command of the General Officer Com-
manding-in- Chief ; or

2. Be warned to attend for training and service on proclamation of great
emergency ; or

3. Be discharged as physically unfit.

Voluntary enlistment should not commence in either Force before the age of
eighteen, and the medical inspection of the Volunteers should be much stricter
than at present.

It seems, therefore, that the only difference between the majority
and the minority of the Commission is that, whereas the former
desire to make us secure at once, the latter wish to postpone the pro-
cess until the efficacy of less strong measures has been tried.

I defer for the present the consideration of the views put forward
to the Commission by the witnesses with great experience of high com-
mand in modern war ; and the first impression I receive from the
views expressed by many other of the witnesses is that there is a general
belief that, like as the sun was stayed in the heavens for the benefit of
the chosen people, so the world is for an indefinite period to stop
rotating until the measures recommended in the minority reports for
the improvement of the Auxiliary Forces for the defence of the British
Isles have had time, not, be it noted, to bring about the desired result,
but until we shall be able to ascertain whether they would do so at
all. The idea seems prevalent that we are in a sort of millennium,
with any amount of time for sluggish snail-pace improvement. The
minority reports, and the recommendations for which the majority
of the Commissioners, much against their will and their sound
appreciation of the facts of the matter, find place in their report,

12 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

are suitable for an imaginary world, but not for the tempestuous
actual world in which our lot is cast.

In this our world, great nations stand permanently armed to the
teeth, and ready to ' let slip the dogs of war.' As Major Ross, in his
Representative Government and War, points out, a nation that deter-
mines to hold or gain the upper hand lies in wait till the favourable
moment comes, the moment when it possesses some marked superiority
or advantage over its rival, and then it either converts some little
insult or fancied grievance into a casus belli, or in the absence of these
it creates a casus belli, and plunges forthwith into the struggle. Just
now ' 1'entente cordiale,' whilst of comfort and benefit to the present,
has a blinding effect on us as to the future, and has an obliterating
effect on the remembrance of the history of the past. And yet how
rapidly change the feelings of nations to each other ! The memories
of that dark year 1900 seem quite blotted out. Engaged in a stu-
pendous struggle oversea, we were absolutely defenceless at home.
I went about among the camps of the Regular and Auxiliary Forces,
and found an almost hopeless absence of knowledge of soldiering.
A recently promoted general officer whom I congratulated on his
advancement, replied, ' I am very glad, but I want to be taught
general's work.' I reported to the civil and military authorities
that, in my opinion, 50,000 highly trained regular troops of any
hostile foreign Power could walk from one end of England to the
other, as I still believe they could have done. A syndicate of
journalists invited me to write a series of articles on the invasion
of England : in my reply I told them that for me to do so would
be the act of a ' traitor ' ; and to emphasise this I informed them of
the fact, of which they till then, like all not behind the scenes,
were in complete ignorance, that we had only between thirty and
forty field guns with which to enter on a defensive campaign. We
were simply on the brink of a hopeless catastrophe at the end of 1900.
In the course of three years the political weathercock has gone clean
round. He would be a bold prophet, however, who would guarantee
for the next three years its remaining in this position. Our safety
now depends on there arising no misunderstanding with any great
foreign Power, no increase of present requirements for holding our
now vastly expanded empire, and on our being generously allowed by
our possible foes time to find out whether our would-be defenders,
who have other ' avocations in life,' can kindly spare enough
time to acquire sufficient efficiency to afford us real protection in
the defence of our homes by the trial of the many nostrums and
alleged specifics, including quack remedies, with which the evidence
teems. And how much stronger, for both possible Imperial oversea
needs and for home defence, are we now than we were at the
commencement of the South African war ? A little, but not much.
No wonder that the German officers who have read the Report

1904 OUR PITIABLE MILITARY SITUATION 13

regard the matter, as the Berlin correspondent of the Times tells
us, with an interest only ' languid and perfunctory.' Had universal
service been the unanimous and sole recommendation of the
Commission, a very different sort of interest would have been
aroused. The point at issue between the majority of the Commis-
sioners and their opponents, whether within the Commission itself or
in the country generally, is simply whether by a certain amount of
individual self-sacrifice as patriotic citizens, we shall render ourselves
practically secure against invasion, or whether, as citizens patriotic
only nominally, we shall grudge the small amount of convenience
and ease we are asked to give up for the general good, and shall
prefer to continue for an indefinite period in a sort of fancied happy-
go-lucky security, which, in plain words, is absolute insecurity.

Bearing in mind the hopelessness of accepting, under the altered
conditions of sea transport, any fixed time whatever for preparation
against invasion, to my mind it does not matter what strength is
assumed as that of the invading force.

I remember in the course of conversation at Brussels in 1874,
at the Conference on the Usages of War, Colonel von Voigts-Rhetz
telling my general, the late Sir Alfred Horsford, that if he could land
in England with three army corps, in those days 90,000 men, he could
do a good deal. Von Voigts-Rhetz did not seem to think much of
small raids, but we must remember on the one hand the disastrous
effect that a landing of say 20,000 men at two or three points on the
coast would produce, and the enormous damage they might effect ;
and, on the other hand, that numbers like these are a mere trifle in
the total of Continental armies nowadays, and that so disastrous
would be the effect produced on this country by a raid of any kind,
that preserving the communication of the raiding forces across sea,
or even their eventual destruction or loss, would not enter into the
hostile calculations as a deterrent to the expedition. Colonel von
Voigts-Rhetz spoke with all the experience derived from fighting
against hastily organised auxiliary forces in that part of France which
resembles in its physical aspects close English country — namely, the
country on the Loire.

It is obviously impossible to incorporate in an article such as this
even an analysis of the huge masses of oral and written evidence favour-
ing respectively the conclusions of the majority and those of the
minority of the Commissioners ; the one in support of the adoption of a
scheme certain and sure to obtain the object desired — namely, security
against any invasion attempted, save, of course, one carried out
under some combination of misfortunes on our side that would render
resistance hopeless ; the other teeming with a multitude of recom-
mendations, of all kinds and sorts, but all alike tentative in character
as to their ultimate success, and dependent for their practical value
on the effect of sentiment, ' patriotism under encouragement ' ; and,

14 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY July

moreover, admitted only to produce a satisfactory result if the invader
is sufficiently magnanimous, benevolent, high-minded, and idiotic,
to give us a period of from one to two months' duration for hurry-skurry
preparation. If, thus favoured by fortune, we should be allowed to
' start fair,' we should then have the satisfaction of knowing that we
were protected by some 300,000 noble patriots, quite competent,
when behind entrenchments and hedgerows in ' prepared positions,'
to hold those positions against assault, if the enemy were foolish enough
to attack these positions direct ; but that the patriots would be com-
petent to give a good account of him if, demonstrating against them
so as to hold them in these positions, his highly-trained and well-led
troops took to manoeuvring in the concealed and difficult country
against our defenders, or even what would be the result of our de-
fenders issuing out of the positions and trying to force him back to
his ships or into the sea, the boldest believer in the power of
' patriotism under encouragement ' does not dare to prophesy. Per-
haps these, however, are minor details.

But it is impossible to let pass without comment the evidence
given by Major-General Sir Alfred Turner, K.C.B., who until quite
lately was the Inspector-General of the Auxiliary Forces. From his
high official position, his knowledge of war, and his admitted personal
ability, the General must be regarded as the champion of the adver-
saries of the Report, and as the ablest exponent of the views and
opinions of the anti-compulsory-service party ; and it must be owned
that if the cause he championed was weak, he did all he could to
make the best of it. The General was four times before the
Commission, and, whereas the average number of answers of the
other 133 witnesses was 173, the answers recorded to the General's
account are 1,113, besides fifteen memoranda of sorts. It was on
the 8th of June last year that the General first gave evidence, and
it is fortunate that, when we have to commence the perusal of
those 1,113 answers and fifteen memoranda just a year later, he
contributed to the Daily Express, almost simultaneously with their
being given to the public, an article giving a final summary of his
views ; so both article and evidence may be taken together, and the
work of examining the latter is much eased thereby. I take from the
article his estimate of the maximum amount of training that it is
possible for the Auxiliary Forces to give consistently with their ' other
avocations in life.' He regards six months' training of the Militia
in the first year as possible :

But I do not think that more than one month's training for the battalion or
other unit could be obtained, because officers who are business and professional
men cannot possibly leave their work for six months. This must be obvious to
anybody who knows anything about professions or business. The Volunteers
cannot do more training than they now do, and though some battalions — or at
least a portion of them — manage to go into camp for fourteen days, the majority

1904 OUR PITIABLE MILITARY SITUATION 15

of large employers of labour, and especially in the North of England, many of
whom have a great number of Volunteers in their employ, cannot possibly give
their men more than a week's leave at a time to go into camp.

And later on he says :

My firm conviction is that shooting is by far the most important factor in
the defence of the country, and, as I stated in my evidence to the Commission,
'Teach the men to shoot, and let the Government support not only the Volun-
teers, but also the rifle clubs throughout the country." If this is done, and the
youth of the country are trained at school as recommended, having regard to
our geographical position we have all that is necessary for home defence. This
is the opinion of experts in Germany and France, whose people, owing to
the presence of their powerful neighbours close to their frontiers, are obliged
to bear the burden of conscription, which is being felt more every year.

I have had the pleasure of the personal friendship of Sir Alfred for
many years, and often have we worked together in Volunteer instruc-
tional exercises at the war game, but it has been reserved for this
article and the evidence to reveal to me the astounding views held by
him not only as to the qualifications and training necessary for our Home
Defence Army, but also on war. At the outset I would remark that the
quoting of the opinions expressed to him by foreign officers, especially
when those were German staff officers, reveals to me an absence of
guile in the General's character for which I had not given him credit.
Is it likely that the German or the French staff officers would endeavour
to impress on the mind of the Inspector-General of the Auxiliary
Forces of Great Britain their belief in the inefficiency of those forces ?

The perusal of the General's evidence leads me to the conclusion that
he is so firm a believer in the Navy as our one and only line of defence
that the possession of a land second line of defence is not, in his opinion,
of importance, and that this second line is of little more use than
for show. Should the Navy fail us, almost an impossibility in his
opinion, we must at once throw up the sponge, for he thinks there is
only starvation before us. A few words seem desirable here with
regard to the ' starvation bogie ' trotted out by the General. The
weak point in accepting the starvation bogie as an ally either in
theory or practice is that it is so unreliable and so apt to mislead.
After Sedan it was the starvation theory applied to practice that
was the foundation of the strategy adopted by Von Moltke for the
next series of operations. Paris, it was believed, could hold out only
for eight days ; the Parisians would surrender as soon as, according to
Von Moltke's own recorded words, they had no ' fresh milk.' But
when the eight days' deprivation of fresh milk did not lead to sur-
render, the calculation of resistance was extended to six weeks ; yet
these calculations were proved to be false, for it was not until more
than four months of very short commons had elapsed that starvation,
combined with the knowledge that there was no hope of relief from
the provinces, compelled the Parisians to surrender ; and with better

16 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

leading on the French side, it is indubitable that during that period the
investment would have been raised for a time at all events. Dividing
an estimated existing food supply by the number of mouths to eat
it, and accepting the dividend as the limit of human endurance, is
an arithmetical process that all history shows to be useless for the
practical purposes of war.

But the General desires also, for some reason not very clear,
to keep the Auxiliary Forces in existence ; it is better, he says,
to have them than nobody at all. So the General appears to
be on the horns of a dilemma, and it was in his endeavour to
reconcile the two incompatible ideas, an invincible fleet and the
maintenance of an auxiliary force for land home defence (a useless,
great, and wanton waste of money if the fleet is invincible, or if the
moment it is defeated we are starved), that the General had such a
bad time under the searching cross-examination by the Royal Com-
missioners, and, being driven from pillar to post, gave occasionally
answers of the most remarkable character, to my mind totally irre-
concilable with his mental and professional ability. For instance,
he fully admitted the imperious necessity for making good the great
deficiency in our supply of officers and good non-commissioned officers,
a deficiency which might altogether disappear under the conditions of
universal liability to service, and the formation of a corps of well-
educated men analogous to the ' unteroffizier ' of Germany. But
later on (Question 21871-3) his provision of officers to make up the
deficiency in the Auxiliary Forces is to bring back to them all the officers
who have retired from the Regular and Auxiliary Forces. ' Lists of
retired officers are kept everywhere ; I should think that patriotism
would bring them all back into the ranks, and I do not think it would
be necessary to have any organisation in time of peace to ask whether
they were or were not coming back ' ! This is a reversal of the axiom,
' if you desire peace, prepare for war,' with a vengeance. Q. 21884 :
' We must be contented with the best non-commissioned officers and
officers we can get ' ; and then comes the height of credulity. Q. 21885 :
' I doubt very much if the foreigners know these details — that we are
short of officers ; I do not think they know much about it. Of course
their Intelligence Departments are remarkably good, but I doubt if
they go into details of that kind.' The thought inevitably arises :
does the General, notwithstanding his many occasions of intercourse
with the German staff, know much about the contents of the pigeon-
holes in their offices ? And we come across a strange answer to Q. 21892 :
' Is not the advance in enclosed country easier than an advance over
open ground ? — A. Not for trained troops, I should think.' Q. 2005
ran : ' I should tell you that we have it in evidence before us that the
difficult nature of the country would tell in favour of the higher-
trained troops, but you do not agree with that ? — A. Not in the
least.' Again Q. 2001. Leading and manoeuvring of troops in an en-

1904 OUR PITIABLE MILITARY SITUATION 17

closed country and a wooded country, and a country where you cannot
see very far, is almost ' impossible for the attack.' And yet surely all
history shows that in country like this it is individual intelligence
combined with high discipline and with efficiency among the very
lowest as well as the highest leaders that tells in the struggle.

The General, in support of his views, several times refers to the second
period of the Franco-German War, the period when Gambetta was in con-
trol of the provinces ; and I can only say that, from my own very close
study of that period, the conclusions at which I arrive as to the value
of hastily raised auxiliary troops differ very much from his. The
remnant of the regular army in France at that time he gives as 30,000 ;
whilst Hoenig estimates that there were 180,000 either fully or partially
trained. On the Loire, the proportion of auxiliaries to regulars was
four to five, and the 20th Corps, in which the Garde Mobile outnumbered
the regulars in the proportion of twenty-two to nine, was so utterly
demoralised by its failure on the only occasion when it took the offen-
sive that its general reported it to be useless for several days ; and in
this corps, as in the whole of the French forces, the acknowledged
weak point was the deficiency of good officers and good non-commis-
sioned officers. Yet the general (Q. 21871) ' looks with confidence '
to our filling our cadres of officers in ' exactly the same way as
these were filled in Gambetta' s levies.' In close country, the
Garde Mobile and Garde Nationale did, it is true, find some counter-
balancing to their inherent weakness, but where these ' absolutely
untrained men, put out in six weeks, made a very stout fight against
the victorious and perfectly trained German army in compara-
tively open country,' except to be utterly defeated, I must leave the
General to tell me ; I do not know.

Mere extracts from evidence are never satisfactory, but one more
must yet be given. Q. 21894 (Lord Grenfell) : ' We are assuming
that there is an invasion — that an invasion has taken place, as the
Duke said, and that we have, say, 150,000 of the invader : Do you think
this force [i.e., our auxiliary forces] officered with the old officers and
with the present non-commissioned officers, would be sufficient ? —
A. Yes.' Q. 21895 : ' Do you mean the present forces, the Militia and
the Volunteers which are largely under-officered ? — A. Yes.' And
these answers in absolute opposition to those given by Earl Roberts,
Sir T. Kelly-Kenny, Sir John French, and Lord Methuen, who have
had personal experience of the most modern war, and whose views
are shared by Viscount Wolseley, Sir Evelyn Wood, and Sir W.
Butler.

I again say that it is only by a careful examination of the
evidence and memoranda that anyone can form a sound opinion
on the verdict given by the Royal Commission, and I recommend to
those who are willing to undertake the task the perusal of Sir Alfred
Turner's evidence, especially that portion given on the 20th of January

VOL. LVI— No. 329 C

18 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

this year, for it is the most damnatory evidence against the acceptance
of his counsel that from our Auxiliary Forces we should be content to
accept as much as we can ' expect from them ' consistently with
their 'other avocations in life.' In .his 7answer to Q. 21812, .the
General said that he had been accused of being a sort of advocatus
diaboli of the Auxiliary Forces, and that he was perfectly willing to
be an advocatus diaboli or anybody else if he could do good. It
would seem that he has laid himself open to the charge of assuming
that character during the late inquiry. Here I must leave my friend.
It is much to be regretted that in the margins of the Majority
Report there are no references indicating those passages in the evi-
dence on which the Commissioners based the conclusions at which
they arrived ; for, buried deep down iu the fourth volume, are two
passages, each all-important and of the weightiest character. The
first is to be found at p. 216. where, in the summary of remarks
sent in by 124 Commanding Officers of Militia Infantry units, we read
as follows :

It is considered that the threat of enforcing the Ballot Act would render any
vital change unnecessary : — ' No doubt if the Ballot were hanging over the
employers' heads (with no exemption) they would encourage men to join for
fear of themselves or their sons having to serve. This would also keep the
officers' ranks filled ; and with full Militia ranks, well treated, there would be no
lack of troops for the Regular Army.'

1 If the Militia in this country is to be maintained on its present establishment,
it will be necessary to introduce either further money inducements to serve or
some form of compulsory service.'

These paragraphs seem to clear the way towards the solution of
the Militia question ; but the solution of the problem how to render
the Volunteer Force efficient seems almost hopeless when we turn to the
summary of answers received from 218 commanding officers of Infantry
battalions of the Volunteer Force, and on p. 263 read as follows :

Throughout the reports there is much to show that matters have come to a
deadlock. The necessity for stringent regulations is fully acknowledged, but the
' remarks ' are, in the majority of cases, directed to showing how badly the shoe
pinches. ' There is a limit beyond which civilians cannot be expected to give
their services and time to the State. . . . This limit has been reached, if not
exceeded, by the present regulations.'

Here, again, are the ' gates of wood,' the ' bricks without straw '
of 1895, and again I protest against the contribution paid by myself
or others to the public treasury being any longer misappropriated to
keep them going in their present condition.

But what, to my mind, is worse still, must also be brought to
notice. Not only are the Volunteers, as are the Regulars and Militia,
short of officers, but as a body these officers are lamentably inefficient.
In paragraph 48 of the Report is written :

' We have to look to the officers of the Volunteer Force as the

1904 OUR PITIABLE MILITARY SITUATION 19

framework of our army. They are of very unequal quality. Many
of them have given themselves an excellent military education, and
would be a valuable element in any army ; the majority, however, have
neither the theoretical knowledge nor the practical skill in the handling of
troops which would make them competent instructors in peace or leaders
in war?

No, the Volunteer Force as it now stands is but a reed of the most
fragile and weak character on which to depend as the main factor in
home defence, and the officer is the weakest element in it ; and the
weakness seems irremediable even with the strongest encouragement
to remedy it. As Colonel F. W. Tannett- Walker, a representative of
the Institute of Commanding Officers of Volunteers, said in his answer
to Q. 7695 : ' With regard to the difficulty of getting officers, it really
seems to all of us to be almost an unsolvable question.'

By all means let us enrol in our Land Line of Defence that small
minority, the very pick of the Volunteer Force, but to trust to the
Force as a main body in that Line would be absolutely suicidal.

The signatories of the minority reports decidedly deserve our thanks
for suggesting the feeble and doubtful remedies they put forward,
and which are almost counsels of despair. But those Commissioners
who signed the majority report are deserving of all honour and praise ;
for in this ' historic ' document they have boldly, courageously, and
patriotically told to their countrymen the real and full truth as to our
present pitiable military situation. It is for the educated classes of
this country — those who have a material stake in the existence of
Great Britain as a great nation, the possessors of property, the bankers,
the merchants, the manufacturers — to study the evidence most care-
fully, and then to influence the other classes to accept with themselves
the obligation common to them one and all, to render our island
impregnable to assault, no matter how disabled or distant from us
for a time may be the deservedly trusted first line of defence, our
Koyal Navy.

LONSDALE HALE.

c 2

20 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

COMPULSORY EDUCATION AND
COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING

UNDOUBTEDLY the most striking point in the Report of the Royal
Commission on the Militia and Volunteers, the point which has roused
most public interest and excited most controversy, is its practically
unanimous finding that the time has arrived for the adoption in this
country of the principle of ' training to arms the whole able-bodied
male population.' Whatever may be the value of the detailed sugges-
tions made in the Report, it must be admitted that this single pro-
nouncement marks an important epoch in the history of our military
system, not because it is likely to receive immediate application, but
because this is the first time an official body, after a long and searching
inquiry, entered upon and conducted without any suspicion of bias or
prejudice, has reported definitely in favour of the principle of com-
pulsion.

The Report has been attacked from many sides, and among others
upon the ground that the Commissioners have gone outside their
reference. The complaint is made that they were instructed merely
to report upon the measures necessary to render the existing system
more efficient, and not to propose revolutionary changes which would
entirely subvert it. In the long run the country is more likely to
approve of the courage than to blame the temerity of the Duke of
Norfolk and his colleagues for following the evidence brought before
them down to the root principles and fundamental conditions which
underlie any and every adequate system of national defence.

It is not proposed in this article to deal with the purely military
criticisms which have been levelled against the adoption of universal
military training as suggested in the Report. Many such criticisms
are marked by a curious insularity of view and by a very inadequate
appreciation of the wider aspects of our imperial responsibilities. It
will be time enough, however, to consider them when the Committee
of Defence has made up its mind as to what are the naval and military
requirements of the United Kingdom and of the Empire, and Mr.
Arnold-Forster has produced his scheme of Army reorganisation.
One may say in general terms that it seems unlikely that we can, under

1804 COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING 21

any circumstances, much longer resist the influences which have forced
every other European country to substitute a mainly national for a
wholly professional army. It is, of course, admitted that our circum-
stances differ from theirs, and that our needs and dangers are other
than theirs.

While their military systems are based upon the assumption that
they will have to defend compact territories, we are called upon to
defend widely scattered oversea possessions ; while the vast majority
of their land force must always serve at home, a very large proportion
of ours, even in times of peace, must serve abroad. In our case
naval forces, in theirs land forces, form the predominant element in
schemes of home defence. No one imagines that we need the same
sort of military organisation or so large a war establishment for home
defence as is necessary in Continental countries, while it is universally
acknowledged that our army for foreign service must always be a
voluntarily recruited army. But all these differences are really
arguments, not against deepening and widening the sources from
which our actual military requirements must ultimately be supplied, but
solely against any wholesale imitation of Continental methods. There
is, it is true, no similarity between their circumstances and ours, but
there is the closest possible likeness between the magnitude of our
respective responsibilities and dangers. They have been driven, by
menace to their national existence, to base their military systems
upon the training to arms of their whole male population. The details
they have worked out according to their individual requirements.
We are being impelled in exactly the same direction by the rapid
growth of our imperial responsibilities, and the acknowledged difficulty
of meeting sudden dangers abroad and at home with an army recruited
solely by voluntary enlistment. The practice of voluntary enlistment
answered its purpose when only a small army was needed. Its diffi-
culties began when larger claims were made upon it ; at the present
time we see it strained to its utmost limit. With the inexorable fact
before us that, owing to political changes in the world about us
which we are powerless to control, steadily increasing demands will
be made upon it in the future, the probability of its breakdown becomes
a practical certainty. When that breakdown is officially acknow-
ledged, and we resort to some form of compulsion, we shall have
exactly the same liberty to adapt and mould the compulsory system
to our special national requirements as was enjoyed by our neigh-
bours.

I have said we are being driven in this direction by the growth of
our imperial responsibilities. I wonder whether we realise how much
we are also being influenced by the pressure of European public
opinion. When all European armies were professional or mercenary
armies, we were all on the same footing, but since the epoch of national
armies on the Continent the obligation of personal service in defence

22 THE NINETEENTH CENTUET July

of the fatherland has become an obligation every man feels it his duty
to fulfil, and no man desires to avoid. In our own time a great change
has come over public feeling with regard to this question in Conti-
nental countries. There was a time when young men sought to evade
the duty of military service, when they preferred to cross the sea to
England and America, even if such flight involved perpetual banish-
ment ; but gradually such evasions have become rarer and rarer.
To-day they are condemned by public opinion, and are of compara-
tively infrequent occurrence. A couple of generations have sufficed
to remove the grievance and to accustom the minds of young citizens
to look upon military service as one of the duties of life, which is per-
formed quietly, naturally, and without heroics. One of the conse-
quences of the change is that our neighbours are beginning to look
down upon us for our avoidance of what appears to them a natural
obligation to the State. We hardly understand how deep this
sentiment is in their minds. We are generally inclined to think any
ill-feeling they may entertain towards us is compounded of ignorance
and envy. I fear there is in it more than a spice of contempt. And
the greater our prosperity, the more splendid our Empire, the stronger
is the conviction on their part that our power abroad is maintained
and our security at home is guaranteed, not by the personal service
and personal sacrifice of every individual citizen, but by a system
which permits and encourages the majority to cast its burden and
delegate its duties to a very small minority.

To many of us this question of compulsory military training is
much larger than a purely military question, and should be discussed
upon broader and more general lines, upon the basis of national well-
being as well as of national safety. The army of a modern State has
ceased to be a mere fighting machine, created and maintained for
defence or aggression. It performs two distinct functions which it is
important to keep clear and separate in our minds. It is primarily a
great instrument of national defence, but it is also the nation's chief
school of physical training and moral discipline. Discipline and
physical fitness lie at the very root of national efficiency, and it is
because we see in universal compulsory military training one of the
main routes which lead to national efficiency that we should continue
to advocate it, even if our military requirements were less pressing than
they are.

The object of the present writer is to examine briefly a few of the
objections which are urged against it, not from the military, but from
the industrial and social side, and to endeavour to show that they do
not possess anything like the weight which is commonly attributed to-
them.

What are these objections ?

It is asserted that compulsory military training involves ' deplorable
economic waste,' inasmuch as it withdraws young men for a time

1904 COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING 28

from the pursuit of industries ; that it dislocates industrial life, and
would never be accepted by employers ; and further, the fear is ex-
pressed that, if it were adopted, it would bring with it all the admitted
evils of Continental conscription and the barrack system.

Taking these assertions in their order, it may first of all be asked
whether, in the long run, any economic waste is incurred by interrupting
for a time the industrial occupations of young men and submitting
them to a careful course of physical and military training. We have
an idea in this country that there is some superior cleverness or wisdom
on our part in keeping the whole youthful male population uninter-
ruptedly engaged in the production of wealth, while our neighbours
have to take a year or two out of the lives of their able-bodied sons.
There is a suspicious reminder in this view of a state of public opinion
now gone by, which in the name of industry drove children of tender
years into the factory, and which till quite lately, in the same cause,
permitted and almost encouraged them to leave school at an earlier
age than the children of any other enlightened people. The truism
that the strength of a nation does not lie in the amount of wealth it
produces, but in the physical vigour and trained intelligence of its
people, can never cease to be one of the most vital of truths. As a
matter of fact, the European country in which military service is
most strictly enforced is the very country which has increased most
rapidly in wealth, and has become our most formidable industrial
rival.

German writers and public men, while admitting certain incidental
drawbacks, not only refuse to allow that military service is an economic
burden to their country, but declare that its educational and dis-
ciplinary value are among the principal causes of Germany's progress
and success. I think this view is shared by the majority of those in
this country who have an intimate knowledge of international labour
conditions. My own experience as an employer of labour in England,
and as a director of British undertakings, which have in their service
thousands of skilled and unskilled workmen on the Continent of
Europe, in Austria, Bohemia, Germany, Belgium, France, and Italy,
enables me to say, without any hesitation, that military training in
the countries where it is practised has not only a high physical and
moral, but an appreciable and calculable financial value, which varies
in direct proportion to the thoroughness and strictness with which it
is carried out.

The loss of time involved in submitting every able-bodied male
to, say, a year's military training is more than counterbalanced by the
extraordinary improvement in national physique, and by the acquisi-
tion of habits of ready obedience, attention, and combined action,
which have so high an importance in industrial life. Even if some
economic sacrifice were called for, it would surely be worth any country's
while to make it, in order to arrest that physical deterioration which

24 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

follows the flocking of population into towns. No country is more
exposed to the danger of physical deterioration than our own, both
absolutely and relatively, for here, more rapidly than elsewhere, the
urban districts are growing at the expense of the rural. All the
nations of Europe are giving systematic physical training to their
whole male population (for every conscript has to pass through the
gymnasium), with the best possible results. In England physical
education among the masses stands very much where education in
general stood before the Act of 1870 : that is to say, it can be obtained
by those who have money to pay for it, but, in spite of considerable
recent improvements, it does not form an integral and obligatory part
of our national educational system. It is useless to delude ourselves
with the idea that the national love of games is so strong that it is
not necessary to give physical exercise a serious place in the curri-
culum of our elementary schools. We do not act upon this view in
the case of the only class of whom it might possibly be true, for the
boys and young men of the richer classes are taught games with at
least as much care as they are taught languages and mathematics.
Experience shows that among the population of our large industrial
towns, owing, no doubt, mainly to the absence of opportunity, the
slightest desire for active physical exercise is rather the exception
than the rule. For every youth who plays football, a hundred prefer
to look on, with their hands in their pockets, at a match between pro-
fessional players. In any case, spasmodic efforts to popularise games
among the working classes can no more supply the need for national
physical training than the night schools and Sunday schools which
preceded the Act of 1870 could supply the place of compulsory ele-
mentary education. If we persist in pitting our haphazard methods
against the carefully reasoned and elaborately organised systems of
OUT neighbours, we must relatively decline in physical fitness. It is
only a question of time. When none were trained, our racial gifts,
our climate, even our national food, gave us a certain physical pre-
eminence ; but natural gifts, however great, natural predispositions,
however strong, cannot in the long run take the place of careful pro-
fessional training.

It is easy to level the accusation of ' economic waste ' against the
military systems of the Continent, but surely the most deplorable of
all waste is to be found in the condition of the ' slum ' population of
our large cities. Any system which helped to restore these physic-
ally degraded people to a more vigorous state of mind and body would,
to say the least of it, have a high economic value. By the adoption
of any form of compulsory military training, whether it be that of
the Commission's Report or other more simple plans, we should be
able to pass every individual under review, exercise control over him
at a critical period of his life, with the result that many depressing
social problems, which at present we are afraid to tackle, would find

1904 COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING 25

a comparatively easy solution. Some such change would seem to be
called for in the interests of public health and national efficiency,
even if it were not necessary for purposes of national defence.

So far as the employers of this country are concerned, all the
evidence goes to prove that the larger and more intelligent of them
would welcome a rational system of military training. No class is
in a better position to appreciate the importance of physical vigour
and an alert habit of mind on the part of all classes engaged in industry.
Forty years ago Sir Joseph Whit worth, with unrivalled experience,
wrote : ' The labour of a man who has gone through a course of military
drill is worth eighteen pence a week more than that of one untrained,
as through the training received in military drill men learn ready
obedience, attention, and combined action, all of which are so necessary
in work where men have to act promptly and together.' The informa-
tion supplied by the Inspector-General of Recruiting with regard to
the physical fitness of those who present themselves for admission
into the Army is quite as interesting to the employer of labour as it
is to the soldier. Each has to deal with the same material, though for a
different purpose — the one for the defence of our national trade, the
other for the defence of our imperial territories. The very high per-
centage of those willing to enlist in our large cities, who are rejected
on account of their lack of stamina and other physical defects, is as
disquieting and painful a subject for reflection to the patriotic employer
as to the soldier.

All classes of employers would very properly insist that any system
adopted should be entirely democratic in its character and should be
of universal application. What they would resent and resist is a law
which exposed them to the unfairness and caprice of the ballot, which
might by pure chance deprive one employer of a large proportion of
the younger members of his staff, while it left a neighbour — and
perhaps rival — practically untouched.

With regard to the dislocation of industrial life which many people
fear, it must be remembered that it is only at the outset that its effects
would, if ever, be severely felt. Any plan likely to be adopted in this
country would only come gradually into effect. The practice of
carrying out national measures upon a local basis would, no doubt,
be followed in military training exactly as it is in education. Our
industries would speedily adapt themselves to the new conditions,
just as they have adapted themselves to the successive shortening of
the hours of labour and the increasing stringency of the Factory Acts.
We see no decrease of industrial efficiency in France or Germany, and
no serious annual dislocation of business through the action of a military
system far more penetrating and disturbing than anyone would dream
of suggesting for this country. Employers and employed have
accepted it as a condition of life like any other, and have moulded
their business arrangements to meet its requirements. And so it

26 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

would be here. It is impossible to suppose that our industrial organisa-
tion is so delicately poised that it could not stand readjustments
which have been found entirely innocuous in other countries.

Much of the prejudice which exists amongst us against compulsory
military training is due to misconceptions and to well-worn traditions
with regard to the evil consequences of conscription and barrack life.
The use of the word ' conscription ' has really confused and prejudged
the question. It is indeed a curious instance of the tyranny of a word.
As a matter of fact, there need be no question of conscription in these
islands. It is a system which foreign countries have found themselves
compelled to adopt, but there is no reason why any plan of ours should
conform to the prevalent Continental type. There is, on the contrary,
every reason why it should not.

The problem which at present confronts us differs fundamentally
from that with which our neighbours have had to deal. To them
the problem is entirely military. They require a nation trained to
arms to resist foreign invasion. Military training and military service
are one and the same thing, and every trained man belongs to the
national army. Conscription and life in barracks are essential parts
of the system. With us the problem is partly educational, partly
military.

We need to train our young men in order to raise the level of physical
fitness of the nation for the ordinary avocations of life, as well as to
prepare them to take part in the defence of their country, if occasion
should arise ; but though all would receive a measure of military
training, all would not serve.

With our army voluntarily enlisted for oversea service and for
foreign expeditions, and with our fleet as the first line of home defence,
we have no use for the vast number of men which conscription would
bring to the colours. We do, however, need behind our permanent
forces a nation so far trained to arms and accustomed to discipline
as to constitute a great reserve, which can be largely relied upon for
home defence, and to which we can confidently appeal in times of
crisis for any number of volunteers for foreign service.

I see no reason why this preliminary military training of the
nation should not be effected without any serious disturbance of our
existing industrial system, and without incurring any of the objections
which can be brought against conscription.

The problem can probably be approached most safely and with
the best chance of success from the educational side. The principle
of compulsion has been accepted with regard to education, and the
public mind has become accustomed to it. We should, I think, follow
the line of least resistance by grafting military training upon our
existing educational system, instead of starting from a new point of
departure.

My proposal is briefly as follows : — Military or naval training

1904 COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING 27

should be made compulsory for every able-bodied youth between the
ages of, say, fifteen and nineteen, as a branch of or as a continuation
of ordinary education. In working out the details existing educa-
tional machinery should be closely followed. Military training would
rank as an additional branch beside elementary, secondary, and
technical education, being most nearly allied, by its compulsory
character, to elementary education. The duty of carrying out the
law should be imposed upon the local authority — the county or borough
council — acting through a special committee appointed ad hoc, whose
duty it would be to furnish, out of funds provided from imperial
sources, all the necessary expenses for instructors, drill-grounds, and
possibly accoutrements and ranges. The committee would see to
the enforcement of the law, and for that purpose would have in its
service drill attendance officers, just as the present authorities employ
school attendance officers. The War Office would either act alone or
would co-operate with the Board of Education in drawing up, and
from time to time revising, the scheme of military training and in pro-
viding— probably from the district headquarters — the necessary staff of
drill instructors and inspectors. The whole system would rest upon a
purely local basis, like any other branch of education. All lads, until
they attained the age of nineteen and reached a fixed standard of
efficiency, would have to submit to the prescribed course of training
in the locality where they for the time being happened to be. This
would not cause any serious disturbance to industrial life, and could
probably be carried out in the case of the vast mass of the population
during the abundant leisure which is now at the disposal of all classes.
If any difficulty should arise, in order to meet it, there would be little
objection to a further slight shortening of the legal hours during which
' young persons ' may be employed.

It is not contended that this plan would solve any of our purely
military problems ; but if rigorously carried out it would contribute
decisively to the physical regeneration of our people, and would
speedily provide an abundance of raw material from which military
experts should be able to build up adequately the defences of the
Empire. Moreover, by accustoming boys to martial exercises and
military discipline it would make the Army a more popular career
for the many adventurous spirits our race will always produce, and
would thereby set a limit to the chronic difficulty of recruiting for
the Regular Forces.

HENRY BIRCHENOUGH.

28 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

HOW JAPAN REFORMED HERSELF

' IT is a well-known characteristic of mankind to despise what they
do not know. For this reason the Japanese, until quite recently,
looked down upon foreigners as barbarians. But the foreigners dis-
play the same mental attitude which formerly distinguished the
Japanese. They do not know what to them is a foreign country —
Japan.'

It is a good many years ago since Fukuzawa Yukichi, perhaps
the foremost Japanese educationalist of modern times, wrote these
words, and since then the world has learned to respect and to admire
Japan for her splendid achievements in every province of human
activity. But the world still believes that the reform of Japan is a
thing of yesterday, a mushroom growth which has sprung up over-
night, and which, as we are told, may disappear as suddenly as it
came when ' the Asiatic ' reasserts himself, tears up his European
clothes, like the monkey in the fable, and returns to his native ways.

In reality, the foundation on which the magnificent edifice of
modern Japan has been erected with marvellous skill and unparalleled
rapidity was laid at a time when Europe was still in swaddling clothes,
and successive generations have added stone by stone to the building,
which, with the adaptation of European civilisation, received its
natural completion. The rise of modern Japan may seem like a fairy
tale to the superficial observer in Europe or America, but to the
Japanese themselves the reform of their country appears natural in
view of its history, character, and traditions.

If we wish to understand how and why Japan succeeded in carrying
out perhaps the most marvellous reformation which any empire has
ever effected, in order to gauge what are her aims and what her future
will be, we must study her progress and her reformation from Japanese
sources. Such study will reveal the fact that Europe and America
can now learn quite as much from Japan as she has learned from
them in the past.

Twenty years ago, when Japan seemed, in European eyes, no
greater than Siam or Liberia, Fukuzawa Yukichi said :

Though we learned the art of navigation during the last twenty years, it is
neither within the last twenty years, nor within the last 200 years, that we
cultivated and trained our intellect so as to enable us to learn that art. That

1904 HOW JAPAN REFORMED HERSELF 29

continued training is characteristic of Japanese civilisation, and can be traced
back hundreds and thousands of years, and for that continuity of effort we ought
to be thankful to our ancestors.

We have never been backward or lacking in civilisation and progress. What
we wanted was only to adapt the outward manifestations of our civilisation to
the requirements of the time. Therefore, let us study not only navigation, but
every other branch of European knowledge and civilisation, however trifling it
may be, and adopt what is useful, leaving alone what is useless. Thus shall we
fortify our national power and well-being.

On the great stage of the world, where all men can see, we mean to show
what we can do, and vie with other nations in all arts and sciences. Thus
shall we make our country great and independent. This is my passionate desire.

Fukuzawa Yukicbi and the other great reformers of his time have
now succeeded in carrying out their ardent ambition, and have raised
their country to the eminent position in the world which is its due.
Now let us take a rapid glance at old Japan, and then watch its trans-
formation and modernisation.

The early history of Japan is wrapped in obscurity, but from the
fact that the present Emperor comes from a dynasty which, in un-
broken succession, has governed the country for more than 2,500 years,
we may assume that the Japanese were a politically highly organised,
well-ordered, and, therefore, a highly cultured people centuries before
the time of Alexander the Great. Seven centuries before Christ
Japan was already a seafaring nation, for Japanese ships went over
to Corea. In the year 86 B.C. the Emperor Sujin had the first census
of the population taken, and in 645 the Emperor Kotoku ordered
that regular census registers should be compiled every six years. In
Great Britain we find that only in 1801, and after much obstruction
and opposition, was the first census taken. Japan's first regular
postal service was established in the year 202, and was perfected in
later centuries.

The great renaissance of Japan took place in the seventh and
eighth centuries, or several hundred years before William the Con-
queror. Prince Shotoku initiated that period of splendid and universal
progress. He organised the administrative system of the country,
and he created that spirit of Japan which combines absolute fear-
lessness, patriotism, and the keenest sense of personal honour with
unselfishness, unfailing courtesy, gentleness, and obedience to autho-
rity. The following rules of political conduct laid down by the Prince
during a time of disorder have been, and still are, the Ten Com-
mandments of the Japanese, and were spoken of as The Constitution :

. . . Concord and harmony are priceless ; obedience to established principles
is the first duty of man. But in our country each section of people has its own
views, and few possess the light. Disloyalty to Sovereign and parents, disputes
among neighbours, are the results. That the upper classes should be in unity
among themselves, and intimate with the lower, and that all matters in dispute
should be submitted to arbitration — that is the way to place Society on a basis
of strict justice.

30 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

Imperial edicts must be respected. The Sovereign is to be regarded as the
heaven, his subjects as the earth .... so the Sovereign shows the way, the
subject follows it. Indifference to the Imperial edicts signifies national ruin.

Courtesy must be the rule of conduct for all ministers and officials of the
Government. Social order and due distinctions between the classes can only
be preserved by strict conformity with etiquette.

To punish the evil and reward the good is humanity's best law. A good deed
should never be left unrewarded or an evil unrebuked. Sycophancy and dis-
honesty are the most potent factors for subverting the State and destroying the
people.

To be just, one must have faith. Every affair demands a certain measure of
faith on the part of those who deal with it. Every question, whatever its nature
or tendency, requires for its settlement an exercise of faith and authority.
Mutual confidence among officials renders all things possible of accomplishment ;
want of confidence between sovereign and subject makes failure inevitable.

Anger should be curbed and wrath cast away. The faults of another should
not cause our resentment.

To chide a fault does not prevent its repetition, nor can the censor himself
be secure from error. The sure road to success is that trodden by the people in
unison.

Those in authority should never harbour hatred or jealousy of one another.
Hate begets hate and jealousy is blind.

The imperative duty of man in his capacity of a subject is to sacrifice his
private interest to the public good. Egoism forbids co-operation, and without
co-operation there cannot be any great achievement.

These lines, which were written about 600 A.D. , or thirteen hundred
years ago, and which have the sublime ring of inspiration about them,
explain the mystery of the Japanese character better than a lengthy
account of Japan's history, philosophy, and customs. When we re-
member that these principles have continuously been taught in Japan
during more than forty generations, we can understand the character
and spirit of the country, to which it owes its magnificent successes.
When we read these lines we can realise that Fukuzawa Yukichi's
claim to an old civilisation was not a hollow boast, and we can com-
prehend why the passionate ambition to elevate their country animates
every thinking Japanese from the prince to the peasant. These
guiding principles show us the moral and mental foundation of Japan,
and enable us to understand why the Japanese officials are the flower
of the nation, why class jealousy is absent in Japan, and why Japan
is the only country in the world where, regardless of birth, wealth,
and connections, all careers and the very highest offices in the land
are open to all comers.

These principles of political conduct, which might have been
drawn up by a Lycurgus or a Solon, explain the wonderful unity of
purpose, courage, self-reliance, self-discipline, homogeneity, and pat-
riotism of the Japanese nation which at present astonish the world ;
and it seems that Japan owes her greatness and success less to the
superior will-power and to the inborn genius of the individual Japanese
than to the traditional education of the character of the nation, in

1904 HOW JAPAN REFORMED HERSELF 81

which the educational ideas of Athens and Sparta are harmoniously
blended. British education rightly attaches great weight to the
formation of character, but it would seem that British educationalists,
in the highest sense of the word, can learn more from Japan than
from the United States and Germany, where education is principally
directed towards the advancement of learning and the somewhat
indiscriminate distribution of knowledge.

In olden times, when communications were exceedingly bad, the
various centres of original culture existing in the world were separated
from one another by such vast distances that each highly cultured
country naturally thought itself the foremost country of the universe,
considered the inhabitants of other nations as barbarians, refused to
learn from them, became self-concentrated, rigidly conservative, and
at last retrogressive. We find this narrow-minded, though explicable,
attitude of haughty contempt for all foreign culture, which finally
results in the inability to adopt a superior civilisation and organisa-
tion, in Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Palestine, Greece, China, and many
other ancient countries.

To the ever-victorious men of old Japan, also, their country was
naturally the centre of the universe ; it was created by the gods them-
selves, and their Emperor was the Son of Heaven, being a direct
descendant of the great Sun-goddess. But national self-consciousness
and self-admiration never became so overwhelmingly strong as to
obscure Japan's open mind. On the contrary, the Japanese were
always ready to learn from other countries, and to graft foreign
culture on to their own. From conquered Corea Japan introduced
Buddhism, and from the Chinese she learned much in literature,
philosophy, and art. In the year 195 the Chinese species of silkworm
was brought into the country, and later on silk- weavers from various
districts of China were introduced and distributed all over Japan to
teach the inhabitants the art of silk-weaving. In 805 Denkyo Daishi
introduced tea plants in a similar manner. Evidently Japan was
ever ready and anxious to learn from the foreigner all that could be
learned, and to adapt, but not to slavishly copy, all that could benefit
and elevate the nation.

Up to a few hundred years ago European civilisation was un-
known in Eastern Asia. Largely owing to the influence of Buddhism,
Japan had been permeated with Chinese literature and Chinese ideas,
and had come to consider Chinese culture in many respects superior
to her own. Therefore it was not unnatural that, in the sixteenth
century, when Portuguese missionaries caused a widespread revolt,
Japan resolved to close, more sinico, the country against all foreign
intercourse. From 1638 to 1853, or for more than two hundred years,
Japan led a self-centred existence far away from the outer world, like
the sleeping beauty of the fairy tale ; but in the latter year she was
waked out of her self-chosen seclusion by the arrival of Commodore

82 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

Perry and his squadron, who. to the amazement of Japan, had come
to wring a commercial treaty from the country, and to open it, if
necessary by force, to the hated foreigners.

Japan had considered herself safe from the contact of foreigners,
and inviolable. The intrusion of Commodore Perry was, in the eyes
of all Japan, a crime and almost a sacrilege. The sanctity of the
country had been denied, its laws had been set at defiance, and the
Government had no power to resist the Commodore, who used veiled
threats of employing force. The feeling of national honour, which is
stronger in Japan than in any other country, was deeply outraged,
and the passionately patriotic nation was shaken to its base with
violent indignation.

Nothing can give a better idea of the indescribable excitement and
turmoil which was caused by Commodore Perry's intrusion than the
vivid account of Genjo Yume Monogatari, a contemporaneous writer.
He says :

It was in the summer of 1853 that an individual named Perry, who called
himself the envoy of the United States of America, suddenly arrived at Uraga,
in the province of Sagami, with four ships of war, declaring that he brought a
letter from his country to Japan, and that he wished to deliver it to the Sove-
reign. The Governor of the place, Toda Idzu No Kami, much alarmed by this
extraordinary event, hastened to the spot to inform himself of its meaning. The
envoy stated, in reply to questions, that he desired to see a chief minister in
order to explain the object of his visit, and to hand over to him the letter with
which he was charged. The Governor then despatched a messenger on horse-
back with all haste to carry this information to the Castle of Yedo, where a
great scene of confusion ensued on his arrival. Fresh messengers followed, and
the Shogun lyeyoshi, on receiving them, was exceeding troubled, and summoned
all the officials to a council.

At first the fear seemed so sudden and so formidable that they were too
alarmed to open their mouths, but in the end orders were issued to the great
clans to keep strict watch at various points on the shore, as it was possible that
the ' barbarian ' vessels might proceed to commit acts of violence.

Presently a learned Chinese scholar was sent to Uraga, had an interview
with the American envoy, and returned with the letter, which expressed the
desire of the United States to establish friendship and intercourse with Japan,
and said, according to this account, that if they met with a refusal they should
commence hostilities.

Thereupon the Shogun was greatly distressed, and again summoned a
council. He also asked the opinion of the Daimios. The assembled officials
were exceedingly disturbed, and nearly broke their hearts over consultations
which lasted all day and all night.

The nobles and retired nobles in Yedo were informed that they were at
liberty to state any ideas they might have on the subject, and, although they all
gave their opinions, the diversity of propositions was so great that no decision
was arrived at.

The military class had, during a long peace, neglected military arts ; they
had given themselves up to pleasure and luxury, and there were very few who
had put on armour for many years, so that they were greatly alarmed at the
prospect that war might break out at a moment's notice, and began to run
hither and thither in search of arms. The city of Yedo and the surrounding
villages were in a great tumult. And there was such a state of confusion among

1904 HOW JAPAN REFORMED HERSELF 33

all classes that the Governors of the city were compelled to issue a notification
to the people, and this in the end had the effect of quieting the general anxiety.
But in the Castle never was a decision further from being arrived at, and,
whilst time was being thus idly wasted, the envoy was constantly demanding
an answer.

Commodore Perry happened to arrive at a most critical period in
the history of Japan. Since 1192 the formerly subordinate military
class had seized the reins of government, and the Shogun, who was
supposed to be only the generalissimo of Japan, and who was
appointed by the Mikado, had possessed himself of all political power.
The Mikado was the nominal ruler of the country, but, though he was
treated with the greatest respect, was in reality a prisoner in his
palace at Kyoto. The country was divided into numerous principali-
ties, which were more or less independent. Japan was an empire
in name, but no longer an empire in fact. Thus the land was ruled
by a number of great feudal chiefs, who were supported by their
armed retainers, the samurai, the soldier caste of Japan. The
autonomous territories of the great nobles were ruled on different
principles — they possessed their own laws, finances, and regulations.
There was consequently, perhaps, less unity in Japan then than there
is at present in China.

In the absence of a powerful centralising influence, the country
had become divided against itself : the formerly unquestioned authority
of the Shogun had been shaken and gravely compromised, the nobles
were intriguing for power, the people were arbitrarily and harshly
treated, feudalism felt the ground heave and give way under its feet.

The numerous Daimios, the great feudal lords of old Japan, were
generous patrons of literature and art, and strove to make their
residences not only seats of power, but also centres of learning. From
these learned circles the ultimate revolt against the Shogun' s usurpa-
tion took its beginning. In 1715 the Prince of Mito finished,
with the assistance of a host of scholars, his great work, Dai Nihon
Shi, or history of Japan. This classical work was copied by hand by
industrious students and eager patriots, and was circulated throughout
the Empire, being printed only in 1851. It is characteristic for the
spirit of intense and reflective patriotism of Japan that this celebrated
compilation, which gave an account of the decay of the Mikado's
power and of the usurpation by the Shoguns, became the strongest
factor in the eventual overthrow of the Shogunate, in the re-esta-
blishment of the Mikado's power, and in the unification of the Empire.

The history by the Prince of Mito was followed by a history of
the usurpation period by the celebrated scholar, poet, and historian,
Rai Sanyo, who attacked with historic proof, unanswerable logic, and
patriotic fervour the Shogun's usurpation of the Imperial power. He
traced the history of Japan and the Imperial House, and mourned
the disappearance of the true Imperial power. The influence of his

VOL. LVI— Kb. 329 D

34 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

writings was enormous, and not a few of his disciples became men of
action, who carried out their master's ideas. Thus the Mikado's
party found a strong and growing support among the intellectual

The body of malcontent idealists and students was reinforced by
the large body of devout Shintoists, who see in the Mikado their god,
and the fountain of all virtue, honour, and authority. Shintoism,
which had been lying dormant for a long time, experienced a wonderful
revival, and became again a living faith. Consequently it was only
natural that the adherents to Japan's native religion were outraged
when they were told that the Mikado had been ousted from power
and was practically a prisoner.

Thus disorder within the country was added to the danger
threatening from without. While the conscience of the people was
awaking to the ancient wrong done to the Mikado and clamouring
for its redress by reinstating him in power, Japanese patriotism in-
stinctively felt the need of uniting the nation against the insolent
foreigner, and added force to the growing movement towards national
unity and towards the reinstallation of the legitimate ruler.

Under these circumstances it was only natural that the ferment of
the nation was greatly increased by the behaviour of the insolent
foreigners, and by their — to Japanese minds — outrageous demands,
and the national feeling rose to fever heat when it was discovered that
the Shogun had, in spite of the remonstrance of the Mikado, con-
cluded the treaty of 1854, whereby the country was opened to foreign
trade, merely in order to get rid of the troublesome and dreaded
foreigners at any price.

From 1854 onward the problem whether the foreigners should be
exterminated or tolerated was uppermost in men's minds, and, as the
majority of the nation was in favour of expelling the barbarians, the
position of the unfortunate Shogun, who had concluded the treaty
without the Mikado's consent, became one of very great difficulty.
During this period of national agitation and perturbation the Mikado
issued a rescript, in which he said : 'L Amity and commerce with
foreigners brought disgrace on the country in the past. It is desir-
able that Kyoto and Yedo should join their strengths and plan the
welfare of the Empire.' This idea rapidly became universal, and led
to the rallying cry of the people, which rang from one end of the
Empire to the other : ' Destroy the Shogunate and raise the Mikado
to his proper throne.'

The hatred towards the foreign intruders became more and more
accentuated as time passed on. Europeans were murdered without
provocation, and the guns on the coast opened fire on foreign ships,
regardless of their nationality, when they passed by. These attacks
led to the bombardment of Kagoshima on the llth August, 1863,
and to that of Shimonoseki on the 5th September, 1864. Though the

1904 HOW JAPAN REFORMED HERSELF 35

Japanese on land bravely tried to defend themselves, they found
their weapons unavailing against the superior armaments of the
foreign ships.

The effect of the two bombardments on the mind of Japan may best
be gathered from the following memorandum of a native chronicler :

The eyes of the Prince were opened through the fight of Kagoshima, and
affairs appeared to him in a new light ; he changed in favour of foreigners, and
thought now of making his country powerful and of completing his armaments.

The Emperor also wrote in a rather pathetic tone to the Shogun :

I held a council the other day with my military nobility, but, unfortunately,
inured to the habits of peace which for more than 200 years has existed in our
country, we are unable to exclude and subdue our foreign enemies by the for-
cible means of war. ... If we compare our Japanese ships of war and cannon
with those of the barbarians, we feel certain that they are not sufficient to in-
flict terror upon the foreign barbarians and are also insufficient to make the
splendour of Japan shine in foreign countries. I should think that we only
would make ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of the barbarians.

The damage done by the bombardments was, after all, insigni-
ficant, and if Japan had possessed the spirit of China, the officials might
easily have explained away these attacks as being unimportant and
purely local affairs. However, the proud mind of Japan required no
further humiliation to drive home the lesson, but immediately realised
that the time of seclusion, conservatism, and feudalism was past, and
that the nation's salvation could only henceforward be found in pro-
gress and unity. As Professor Toyokichi lyenaga put it :

Those bombardments showed the necessity of national union. Whether she
would repel or receive the foreigner, Japan must present a united front. To
this end a great change in the internal constitution of the Empire was needed.
The internal resources of the nation had to be gathered into a common treasure,
the police and the taxes had to be recognised as national, not as belonging to
petty local chieftains, the power of the feudal lords had to be broken, in order to
reconstitute Japan as a single strong State under a single head. These are the
ideas which led the way to the Restoration of 1868. Thus the bombardments
of Kagoshima and Shimonoseki may be said to have helped indirectly in the
Restoration. . . .

When a country is threatened with foreign invasion, when the corporate
action of its citizens against the enemy is needed, it becomes an imperative
necessity to consult public opinion. In such a time centralisation is needed.
Hence the first move of Japan after the advent of foreigners was to bring the
scattered parts of the country together and unite them under one head. Japan
had hitherto no formidable foreign enemy on her shores, so her governmental
system, the regulating system of the social organism, received no impetus for
self -development ; but as soon as a formidable people, either as allies or foes,
appeared on the scene in 1858, we immediately see the remarkable change in the
State system in Japan. It became necessary to consult public opinion. Councils
of Kuges (nobles belonging to the Court of the Mikado) and Daimios (indepen-
dent nobles) and meetings of Samurai sprang forth spontaneously.

Recognising that the reconstitution of the country, its reunion,
and the re-establishment of the rule of the Mikado were absolute

36 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

necessities for the continued independent existence of Japan, the
Shogun, the virtual ruler of the country, whose predecessors had
governed Japan for hundreds of years, took a step which is almost
unprecedented in history. Placing the welfare of his country high
above the glorious traditions of his House, and waiving the historical
claims to his exalted position which he possessed, the Shogun resigned
his office on the 19th November, 1867, in a document which should
for ever and to all nations be a monument of sublime patriotism. In
this document he said :

A retrospect of the various changes through which the Empire has passed
shows us that after the decadence of the monarchical authority power passed
into the hands of the Minister of State; that by the wars of 1156 to 1159 the
governmental power came into the hands of the military class.

My ancestor received greater marks of confidence than any before him, and
his descendants have succeeded him for more than 200 years. Though I
performed the same duties, the objects of government have not been attained
and the penal laws have not been carried out ; and it is with a feeling of the
greatest humiliation that I find myself obliged to acknowledge my own want of
virtue as the cause of the present state of things. Moreover, our intercourse
with foreign Powers becomes daily more extensive, and our foreign policy cannot
be pursued unless directed by the whole power of the country.

If, therefore, the old regime be changed and the governmental authority be
restored to the Imperial Court ; if the councils of the whole Empire be collected
and their wise decisions received, and if we are united with all our heart and
all our strength to protect and maintain the Empire, it will be able to range
itself with the nations of the earth. This comprises our whole duty towards our
country.

This simple declaration is as manly, straightforward, and wholly
admirable as the following verbal explanation of his step which the
Shogun gave to Sir Harry Parkes and the French Minister. He said :

I became convinced last autumn that the country would no longer be
successfully governed while the power was divided between the Emperor and
myself. ... I therefore, for the good of my country, informed the Emperor that
I resigned the governing power with the understanding that an assembly of
Daimios shall be convened for the purpose of deciding in what manner and by
whom the government should be carried on in the future.

In acting thus I sank my own interests and abandoned the power handed
down to me by my ancestors in the more important interests of the country. . . .
In pursuance of this object I have retired from the scene of dispute instead of
opposing force by force. ... As to who is the Sovereign of Japan, this is a
question on which no one in Japan can entertain a doubt. The Emperor is the
Sovereign.

My object has been from the first to obey the will of the nation as to the
future government. If the nation should decide that I ought to resign my
powers, I am prepared to resign them for the good of the country. ... I had
no other motive than the following : With an honest love for my country and
people, I resigned the governing power which I inherited from my ancestors
with the understanding that I should assemble all the nobles of the Empire to
discuss the question disinterestedly, and, adopting the opinion of the majority,
which decided upon the reformation of the national constitution, I left the
matter in the hands of the Imperial Court.

1904 HOW JAPAN REFORMED HERSELF 87

Thus the 'question whether the Mikado or the Shogun should be
supreme was not decided by civil war, as might have been expected,
but by the self-sacrifice of patriotism.

The Mikado accepted the resignation of the Shogun, and with
the disappearance of the latter from power the chief obstacle to
Japan's unification and modernisation was removed. A government
was formed by the Mikado, and its first active step was a memorial
to the Throne, which is so remarkable for its enlightenment and which
is so important for the whole development of Japan that it seems
necessary to quote a part of it. That interesting manifesto, which
most clearly illustrates the mind of Japan and which brings the
fundamental differences between that country and China into the
strongest relief, says :

.... It causes us some anxiety to feel that we may perhaps be following the
bad example of the Chinese, who, fancying themselves alone great and worthy
of respect and despising foreigners as little better than beasts, have come to suffer
defeats at their hands and to have it lorded over themselves by those foreigners.

It appears to us, therefore, after mature reflection, that the most important
duty we have at present to perform is for high and low to unite harmoniously
in understanding the conditions of the age, in effecting a national reformation,
and commencing a great work; and that for this reason it is of the greatest ne-
cessity that we determine upon the attitude to be observed towards this question.

Hitherto the Empire has held itself aloof from other countries and is
ignorant of the force of the world; the only object set has been to give ourselves
the least trouble, and by daily retrogression we are in danger of falling under a
foreign rule.

By travelling to foreign countries and observing what good there is in them,
by comparing their daily progress, the universality of intelligent government,
of a sufficiency of military defences and of abundant food for the people among
them, with our present condition, the causes of prosperity and degeneracy may
plainly be traced. . . .

In order to restore the fallen fortunes of the Emperor and to make the
Imperial dignity respected abroad, it is necessary to make a firm resolution and
to get rid of the narrow-minded notions which have prevailed hitherto.

We pray that the important personages of the Court will open their eyes
and unite with those below them in establishing relations of amity in a single-
minded manner, and that, our deficiencies being supplied with what foreigners
are superior in, an enduring government be established for future ages. Assist
the Emperor in forming his decision wisely and in understanding the condition
of the Empire; let the foolish argument which has hitherto styled foreigners
dogs and goats and barbarians be abandoned ; let the Court ceremonies, hitherto
imitated from the Chinese, be reformed, and the foreign representatives be
bidden to Court in the manner prescribed in the rules current amongst all
nations ; and let this be publicly notified throughout the country, so that the
ignorant people may be taught in what light they are to regard this subject.
This is our most earnest prayer, presented with all reverence and humility.

Happily, the Mikado himself saw the necessity for reform and
progress. Had he been a man of ordinary ability, had he not been
aided by a group of enlightened and far-seeing statesmen, he might have
rested satisfied with regaining, by the force of circumstances, the

38 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

power which his ancestors had lost centuries ago. He would have
continued a rule of absolutism, and he would merely have tried to
raise the defensive power of the country sufficiently to allow Japan
to return to the seclusion to which the people had become accustomed.
But happily, Mutsu Hito was thoroughly in sympathy with the
reformers, and on the 17th April, 1869, he took before the Court and
the Assembly of Daimios the charter oath of five articles, which in
substance were as follows :

(1) A deliberative assembly shall be formed, and all measures shall be
decided by public opinion.

(2) The principles of social and political science shall be constantly studied
by both the higher and lower classes of the people.

(3) Everyone in the community shall be assisted in obtaining liberty of
action for all good and lawful purposes.

(4) All the old, absurd usages of former times shall be abolished and the
impartiality and justice which are displayed in the working of Nature shall be
adopted as the fundamental basis of the State.

(5) Wisdom and knowledge shall be sought after in all quarters of the
civilised world, for the purpose of firmly establishing the foundations of Empire.

Thus the Mikado identified himself with the cause of reform,
pledged the nation to progress, and made the success of the move-
ment towards the modernisation of Japan a certainty. Henceforth
the whole of the nation strove for progress and enlightenment with
that passionate will-power and singleness of purpose which is not
found outside Japan.

By the voluntary surrender of power on the part of the Shogun,
the Mikado had been installed, and he had pledged himself to pro-
gress; but the formidable difficulties remained how to unify and
modernise a nation which for centuries had been governed by a large
number of independent princes whose power rested on an immense
army of Samurai. The problem of abolishing feudalism and mili-
tarism, which, so far, had formed the groundwork of all government,
was one of enormous difficulty, for the feudal lords and their Samurai
considered themselves, naturally, as ' the government ' by tradition
as well as by right. This apparently formidable question was, how-
ever, easily settled by the marvellous patriotism of those who held
power in the land.

Daimio Akidzuki, President of the Kogisho (the deliberating council
representing the clans), addressed the following memorial to the Throne :

. . . The various Princes'have used their lands and their people for their own
purposes; different laws have obtained in different places ; the civil and criminal
codes have been different in the various provinces.

The clans have been called the screen of the country, but in reality they
have caused its division. Internal relations having been confused, the strength
of the country has been disunited and diminished. How can our small country
of Japan enter into fellowship with the countries beyond the sea ? How can
she hold up an example of a nourishing country ?

1904 HOW JAPAN REFORMED HERSELF 39

Let those who wish to show their faith and loyalty act in the following manner,
that they may firmly establish the foundations of Imperial government : )

(1) Let them restore the territories which they have received from the
Emperor and return to a constitutional and undivided country.

(2) Let them abandon their titles, and under the name of Kuazoko (persons
of honour) receive such small properties as may suffice for their wants.

(3) Let officers of the clans abandon that title, call themselves officers of the
Emperor, receiving the property equal to that which they have held hitherto.

Let these three important measures be adopted forthwith, that the Empire
may be raised on a basis imperishable for ages. . . <

This declaration, which was inspired by the great statesmen of the
three leading clans, and which breathes a spirit of unselfish patriotism
that seems almost incredible to the more stolid and the more selfish
nations of the West, met with universal approval, and the great
Daimios emulated one another in offering up to the Mikado their
titles, their position, their lands, and their wealth. The Daimios of
the West, for instance, said in their memorial :

Now, when men are seeking for a new government, the great body and the
great strength must neither be lent nor borrowed. . . . We therefore reverently
offer up the list of our possessions and men. . . . Let Imperial orders be issued
for altering and remodelling the territories of the various clans. Let all affairs
of State, great and small, be directed by the Emperor.

On the 14th of April, 1869, 118 Daimios, having1 a revenue of
12,000,000 kokus of rice, or about 24,000,00$., had agreed to the
proposed radical restoration. A few months later 241 out of 258 of
these nobles had resigned their power, and the remaining seventeen,
who were the only dissentients, soon followed suit. Thus feudalism,
which had existed in Japan for over eight centuries, voluntarily
extinguished itself, and patriotism triumphed over selfish interests
and the love of power.

The fall of feudalism was marked by the laconic Imperial decree
of the 29th August, 1871, which simply announced : ' The clans are
abolished and prefectures are established in their place.' As great an
event in history has probably never been proclaimed by as short a
decree.

The new era of Japan, which is truly called the ' Meji Era,' the
era of enlightenment, thus began with acts of noble self-sacrifice by
the greatest in the land, and the patriotic example of the nobility
stirred up the country from shore to shore. A feverish desire to sacri-
fice themselves for their country, a desire which is deeply implanted
in all Japanese, took hold of the whole population, and when it was
recognised that the enormous caste of Samurai, the warriors, who
cost the country about 2,000,000?. per annum, had no room in the
modern State, patriotism found again the remedy. The army of pro-
fessional soldiers, who had been taught that the sword was their sole
and their only means of earning a living, and who disdained ^to earn
their bread by industry or trade, quietly effaced themselves, sur-

40 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

rendered the larger part of their income, and, without a murmur,
accepted inglorious poverty in the shape of pensions which amounted
to but a few pence per day, and which barely kept the men from
starvation.

The compensation paid to the nobles for surrendering their lands
and, with the lands, their incomes to the State, the pensioning of the
Samurai, and the rearrangement of finances from their local basis to
an Imperial basis, was an enormous financial transaction of stupendous
difficulty. The loans raised in connection with this vast national
reorganisation amounted to no less than 225,514,800 yen, or to the
truly enormous sum of about 40,000,OOOZ. It speaks volumes for the
financial strength of the country and for the consummate ability of
the Japanese financiers that this enormous operation was satisfac-
torily carried out, and that by 1903 all but the trifling amount of
23,800,111 yen had been redeemed.

Many enlightened Japanese shared the opinion of the great educa-
tionalist, Fukuzawa Yukichi, who fearlessly declared : ' The Govern-
ment exists for the people, and not the people for the Government ;
the Government officials are the servants of the people, and the
people are their employers.' Hence the desire for representative
government arose in Japan soon after the reformation, though the
Japanese had hitherto only known government by despotism. Though
the Japanese people had had no experience whatever of popular
government, the Mikado and his advisers had so much confidence in
the good. sense and the patriotism of the nation that they decided
upon giving the people a share in the government of the country.
On the 12th October, 1881, the Mikado issued the famous declaration,
in which he said :

We have long intended to establish gradually a constitutional form of govern-
ment. ... It was with this object in view that we established the Senate in
1875, and authorised the formation of local assemblies in 1878. . . . We there-
fore hereby declare that we shall establish a Parliament in 1890, in order to
carry into full effect the determination which we have announced; and we
charge our faithful subjects bearing our commissions to make in the meantime
all necessary preparations to that end.

With the deliberate cautiousness and foresight which is character-
istic of all Japanese action, the people were, step by step, introduced
and accustomed to self-government. When the Senate had settled
down, the local assemblies were created, and when the local assemblies
had proved their worth, it was announced that ten years hence a
Parliament should be elected. Thus the leaders of public opinion had
ample time to prepare the nation for the coming change, and were
enabled to educate the electorate for their coming duties.

In consequence of this careful preparation and this wise delay the
Japanese Parliament has proved a great success. The elections
cause no excitement, the people record their votes with the full know-

1904 HOW JAPAN REFORMED HERSELF 41

ledge of their responsibility, and Parliament works with ability and
decorum. Lengthy speeches are unknown in that assembly, and the
House gets through an immense amount of work in an incredibly short
time. Parliamentary peroration and obstruction are practically un-
known in Japan, though there have been not a few political struggles
and dissolutions. However, party struggles are confined to domestic
politics.

The reconstitution of the body politic of Japan was crowned on
the 1st of April, 1890, when the Mikado solemnly promulgated a Con-
stitution for Japan. Whilst in all other monarchical countries the
Constitution had to be wrested from an unwilling Sovereign by the
force, and not infrequently by the violence, of the people, Japan is
the only country in the world which can boast of a monarch who
has voluntarily divested himself of a part of his rights, and who has
by his own free will granted a participation in the government to his
subjects.

This short sketch of one of the most remarkable chapters in the
history of the world clearly proves that Japan's marvellous progress
and her astonishing change from mediaeval Orientalism to modern
Western culture is in no way a fact that can cause surprise.

Though the Japanese are an extremely gifted people, they are,
individually, probably no more talented than are the inhabitants of
many other countries. Japan's progress has no doubt been meteoric,
and her complete adoption of Western culture has certainly been
startling. But her progress and her transformation appear only
natural if we remember that Japan is a nation in which everybody,
from the highest to the lowest, in all circumstances, unflinchingly obeys
the rule : ' The imperative duty of man in his capacity of a subject
is to sacrifice his private interests to the public good. Egoism forbids
co-operation, and without co-operation there cannot be any great
achievement.'

The individualistic nations of the West in which the interests of
the nation are only too often sacrificed to the selfish interests of the
individual, where party loyalty is apt to take precedence over
patriotism, where ministers, generals, and admirals are rarely ap-
pointed by merit only, where jobbery occurs even in time of war,
and where everything is considered permitted that is not actually
punished by law, will do well to learn from Japan's example, for it
cannot be doubted that the cause of Japan's greatness and of Japan's
success can be summed up in the one word — patriotism.

0. ELTZBACHEB.

42 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

THE WOMEN OF KOREA

THERE is, perhaps, no country about the womankind of which so
little is known as of Korea. And one cannot be astonished at
this fact, as the women themselves have been kept as much shut off
from contact with the outer world as the peninsula itself has been
shut off. Not even a medical man is allowed to have access to their
rooms. The Japanese staff surgeon, Dr. Massano Kaike, tried every-
thing possible to break down this rigid isolation, but all his endeavours
proved fruitless. Then he sent for his own wife, and as she found
less difficulty in obtaining access to the secluded women's apartments,
he instructed her to find out what was going on within those dwellings.
The result of this step was that he published the gist of the observa-
tions made in the International Archive of Ethnography.

According to what can be read there, it is not at all correct to
assert, as is often done, that the woman (wife) obtains no considera-
tion on the part of the man (husband). The fact that he fully knows
how to value her as the mother of the coming generation shows itself
clearly in the special care which he bestows on her when he expects
the birth of a child.

A rope stretched across the entrance to the house indicates the
birth of a child. If it is a boy, a piece of coal and a leaf are fastened
to it ; if it is a girl, nothing is attached to the rope. The Koreans
have the curious habit of not counting their daughters as members of
the family — at least, not in public. If a father is asked how many
children he has got, he always gives as answer the number of his sons.
One can only learn of the existence of a daughter by very particular
close inquiries. They have special names only up to the age of seven,
after which they only bear the father's surname, and are henceforth
known only as daughter, sister, or wife of some man.

When a child has become able to walk a dog is obtained, even in
the poorest families, which is carefully trained to follow the child
everywhere in its little rambles to protect it. Of course, it is not a
rare occurrence that just the opposite takes place. According to the
Korean idea, the mental development of the child is helped on by the

1904 THE WOMEN OF KOREA 43

influence of light, and on that account the lamp in the children's
room is never put out.

In education the separation between boys and girls takes place in
the eighth year. The boys then are taught all branches of knowledge
considered necessary for their future calling, but the education of
girls in a good family is limited to the study of maxims of morality
and to the knowledge of the ceremonies in connection with the religious
cultus of ancestors ; in the huts of the poor people the girls are taught
only dressmaking and all sorts of needlework. As a matter of fact,
the women of the lower class are particularly clever in the use of
the needle. This is easily proved by the garments exhibited in the
Museum of Ethnography in Berlin, and in the Brussels Museum. The
embroideries on the silk undergarments are executed with extra-
ordinary skill. In Berlin there is, among other articles, also one
of the famous white garments which the Koreans are particularly
fond of wearing, and which owe their existence to the uncommonly
long period of mourning for their dead. As the Koreans are obliged
to dress in white for three years for every case of death, and as once
three kings died within ten years, by which deaths mourning was
imposed on the whole nation, the majority of people chose rather to
dress continually in white in order to avoid the great expenses in-
volved by a repeated change of clothing.

The women make these garments, and every time they have to be
washed they are entirely taken to pieces, and these are beaten for
hours with a wooden bat in order to obtain the metallic gloss which
is considered particularly beautiful. In the Berlin Museum there is
one of these bats, which is made of cedar wood, and in shape is like
a moderately large wine bottle flattened on one side.

The Koreans are one of the few races in which the girl is developed
later than the boy. In consequence the wives are nearly always a
few years older than the husbands.

The customs connected with a Korean marriage are as follows :
The man sends by a friend a written formal request for the hand of
the girl whom he has chosen, and her family send a written reply.
If the offer is accepted, there follows an exchange of papers of identity,
in which particular attention is given to the exact date and hour of
birth, as they have to fix the day of the calendar which is specially
favourable and propitious for the intended marriage. On that day
the place for the ceremony is prepared at the house of the bride under-
neath the outside entrance staircase. The bridegroom, dressed in the
proper garments, comes driving or riding, accompanied by his father,
dismounts outside the gate, and walks, with his face turned to the
north, to the spot prepared for the ceremony. There the bridegroom,
in kneeling position, puts down his present for the bride, which con-
sists of a wild goose, in default of which a carved one can be substi-
tuted ; he bows twice, retires a short distance, and then stops, with

44 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY .July

his face turned to the west. The reason of the existence of this
curious present is to be found in a legend which tells how a hunter
had once shot the male of a wild goose, and had always seen the
poor goose come back to visit the spot where her mate had been
killed. This present, therefore, means to intimate the hope and
expectation that the wife shall show equal faithfulness to her husband,
and after it has been given the two parties give each other the promise
of eternal faith by using the following words : ' Now our hair is as
black as the feathers of the wild goose, but even if it should turn
white as the fibre of the bulbous root we will still hold together as
faithfully as we do this day.'

The bride that day puts on, for the first time in her life, the com-
plete Korean woman's dress. Her face is powdered, the eyebrows
are painted black, the lips coloured with safflower. Three hairpins
with gold birds of paradise adorn the head, covered with a light hat.
An upper garment of variegated pattern, with purple shoulder-bands,
and a nether garment of scarlet are held round the waist by a white
girdle five inches wide. White cuffs covering the hands, white
stockings, and silk shoes of red, purple, green, or blue, complete the
costume.

With slow steps, supported by three festively dressed waiting-
women, the bride descends the staircase, steps on to the place pre-
pared for the ceremony, and stops, with her face covered with the
fan and turned to the east. She then bows twice to the bridegroom,
who returns the same compliment. After that, two vessels, one
adorned with red, the other with blue ribbons, are filled with wine by
two maidservants and handed by them to the bride and bridegroom.
They both take a sip at the same time, and this act concludes the
ceremonial of the wedding. Then they are separately conducted into
the house. The bridegroom and his father are invited to the banquet,
at which all the relations of the bride take part. After its conclusion
the bridegroom drives home to his house, but the bride does not follow
him till the next propitious calendar day.

And now begins a life of complete seclusion for the Korean
wife. She may not show herself to any married man but her own
husband — nay, not even to the other male members of her own
family.

In former times, as soon as the gates were closed at night, all men,
especially in Seoul, used to go into their houses, and no man showed
himself in the darkness of the street, because the ladies of the rich
classes had the privilege of going out at that time. Deeply veiled,
with their tiny paper lanterns in their hand, they would glide along
from house to house to visit their lady friends. But recently this
custom, which was formerly affirmed by law, has come into disuse.
Thieves had profited by these nocturnal visits of ladies, and had
often robbed them of their jewels, and as the police were not able to

1904 THE WOMEN OF KOREA 45

stop the ever-increasing number of such cases, the old custom was
discontinued altogether.

Now ladies of the best families, in very rare cases, go out at night
deeply veiled and accompanied by their husbands. The women of
the lower classes are sometimes seen in the streets in daytime, but
also deeply veiled and dressed in green garments with red sleeves,
which latter are only used to cover the face of the woman.

G. J. R. GLUNICKE.

46 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

THE POPE AND THE NOVELIST

A REPLY TO MR. RICHARD BAGOT

* POUR vivre tranquille il faut vivre loin des gens d'eglise,' says a
witty Frenchman. There is a certain amount of truth in this for
a particular class of minds. The Church's office is to teach and, in
her own province, to rule her children ; she does the work of conver-
sion. But suppose a man enters into that relation with the Church
which is understood by the term ' becoming a convert,' and then sets
to work to convert her, it is pretty sure that his life will not be very
peaceful. There will be friction at every point ; nothing will please
him ; nothing will be done rightly. From Pope down to curate there
will be surely something amiss which he will want to set right. So
the convert finds himself always at loggerheads with his bishops and
pastors, who object to being thrown out of their office and submitting
to him as a magistrate and master. ' Suum cuique,' which, being
interpreted, means, ' Let the cobbler stick to his last.' I have heard
of a convert who was anxious to know what was his exact position in
the Church which he felt he had honoured by joining. ' Your exact
position in the Church ? ' quoth the padre. ' That's easy enough to
decide. Kneeling before the altar and sitting before the pulpit.
Some do not realise the lesson that they get more from the Church
than she does from them. The favour, I hold, is all on her side when
she receives them into communion and gives them what they cannot
find elsewhere. Hence it happens that such persons who have failed
to grasp the first principles of submission to a teacher and ruler, when
they find that they are not accepted at their own valuation, do one
of two things. After a period of restiveness they either lapse or
become that peculiar specimen of humanity a ' bored ' convert.
Mr. Richard Bagot himself remarks : ' It is not easy to feel religious
when you are feeling bored.' For such the only remedy ' pour vivre
tranquille ' is to live far from us ' gens d'eglise.' But when did the
moth ever forsake the candle when once it had felt the fascination ?
I will not for a moment say that the laity, hereditary Catholics or
neophytes, have not got their rights, nor will I say that these rights
have been, or always are, respected. But this is a very different
position from that of adopting an attitude of perpetual girding against

1904 THE POPE AND THE NOVELIST 47

authority. While I have sympathy with any movement which
seeks by legitimate methods to obtain that recognition of the rights
of the laity which the Church has always acknowledged, I will have
nothing to do with the ' bored ' convert except to wish that he would
take his boredom elsewhere.

Mr. Richard Bagot has given us his views on the Pope and church
music, and dignifies them as a ' Roman Catholic protest.' It may be
as well, before considering these views, to understand Mr. Bagot's
position. He is the author of several brilliant novels, and from these
and other writings I gather that a prolonged stay in Rome has had
its usual effect. A man becomes there, or at least used to become, a
partisan. He is either white or black and can see no good, nor tolerate
the idea of there being any good, in the opposite faction. I think
the position, as a matter of fact, is changing ; and, with the excep-
tion of extremists on either side, most sensible people are becoming
grey or piebald. But not so Mr. Bagot. He has evidently thrown
himself, heart and soul, into the Quirinal party. Therefore we must
expect to find that his presentments of life among the Vaticanists are
tinged with the effects of party spirit. Does he want a villain ? The
blacks supply any number. A hero ? Where should one be found
but among the whites ? I am not going to say that in either ranks
heroes or villains might not be found ; but I am of opinion that, as a
novelist, Mr. Bagot belongs to the school of the late Mrs. Henry Wood,
who drew an unnatural line of demarcation between good and bad.
However it appears that Mr. Bagot is a bored convert, so nothing
the Pope does pleases him. There we must leave it. It is unfor-
tunate for Pius X., perhaps ; or for Mr. Bagot. I have every wish to
do my spiriting gently, and I hope that I have not in any way mis-
represented his position ; but I think it is necessary to make that
clear before I approach his criticisms.

We differ fundamentally, I find, on the philosophy of sacred music.
This is but natural. Mr. Bagot admits that he does not examine the
matter from the point of view of a musical expert ; he makes the
wholly unnecessary admission that technical knowledge is wanting in
his case. And yet, as it is a question which touches upon the pro-
founder side of the artistic and psychological nature of sacred music,
why does he so airily write about the ' insult offered to music ' by ' this
unfortunate and illogical decree ' ? I fear that I shall find abundant
evidence that the imaginative gift, so valuable to a writer of fiction,
has stood in the way when he approaches a subject which deals with
a matter of fact. He has entirely missed the true nature of the ques-
tion altogether. The spiritual, even the artistic point of view has
not troubled him at all. He has not taken into consideration the
elementary fact that music was made for men, not men for music,
and that the art, if it be a means to a certain end, must logically be
regulated by that end, and not vice versa.

48 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

Pius X., who is a true artist and, moreover, a practical musician,
has issued an Instruction on Sacred Music, which he, as head of the
Church, puts forth as a ' juridical code ' on the subject. After all, he
is only enforcing, as a strong and sensible ruler will do, existing legis-
lation. From the days of Gregory I. (604), if not earlier, the Popes
have issued decrees on the subject and Councils have legislated. In
the pontificate of Leo XIII. decrees were issued several times on the
subject ; and this very Instruction is identical with a memorandum
which Cardinal Sarto sent from Venice to his predecessor. It is also
to be found in substance in a long circular addressed by the Patriarch
of Venice to his clergy. The copy before me bears the date of the 1st
of May, 1895. To hint, as Mr. Bagot does, with a half -veiled sneer at the
Pope's antecedents, that the Instruction is largely due to the influ-
ence of Don Perosi is too extravagant an idea for those who know
the independent and strong character of Pius X. It is rather he who
discovered and influenced Perosi, and uses him, with other instru-
ments, for carrying out his will. In determining to enforce the
Church's legislation the Pope has been so unlucky as to displease
the novelist, who promptly publishes ' A Roman Catholic Protest.'
Didn't some sartorial artists, three in number, from over the water,
Southwark-way, once make a memorable protest or declaration ?
Mr. Bagot should not emulate these ' representatives of the people of
England.'

I do claim in this matter to write somewhat as a musical expert
and with technical knowledge, if the facts count for anything
that more than thirty years ago I began life as a professional musi-
cian, and in my time have been choirmaster of one of the leading
churches in London. What are called ' the Masses ' I have sung,
taught, and conducted times out of number, and there is little of the
best modern music with which I am not familiar. But, much as I
love Mozart — I take him here only as a type — I came to the conclu-
sion, years ago, that music of this school represents only a distortion
of the true artistic idea of Church music. Mind, I am speaking only
of it as the music for worship. If the ideal of the times and places
where Mozart wrote was a false one, I see no reason why we should
be obliged to accept it to-day simply because the master composed
under the adverse influences that surrounded him.

Let me put it in this way: We must have either the music of
worship or the worship of music. You must choose one horn of the
dilemma, and you will be led in your choice by the way you answer
the question : Is music made for men or men for music ? Surely
there can be no doubt as to the reply. Music must either be a mere
melodious vehicle for soul-moving words, or these count for nothing
and are to be overpowered by the sounds. In this case the com-
poser, the singer, and the accompaniment will represent the chief
power in the music of worship. But is not this to make the frame

1904 THE POPE AND THE NOVELIST 49

more important than the picture, the setting than the jewel ? Or,
in a more homely phrase, is not this putting the cart before the horse ?

In the music of worship the true artistic sense demands truth,
for nothing can be beautiful except it be true ; and truth demands
that, in this style of music, the words should be paramount and music
the handmaiden ; for it is in the text that we find life and truth, not
bound, but quick and powerful.

Music by itself is vague unless it has associations. Its very vague-
ness makes it the least material of arts, and, therefore, when properly
directed, such a valuable help in worship. But this quality is also
its danger. It may so soon escape control and become a veritable
hindrance.

Now, I take it that worship is not vague but definite. I cannot
understand people who hoot and croon at the moon as an act of
worship to the Unknowable, like Mr. Mallock's Paul and Virginia on
one memorable night in the Chasuble Islands. No ; for reasonable
beings a definite idea is required in the act of worship. Hence
words, uttered or thought, are necessary ; and if there be used that
subtle influence of a well ordered succession of musical intervals
which we call melody, either alone or in combination with other
melodies, it can only rightly be employed to draw out of the soul the
hidden force and life within the words. How is it that, in so many
cases, words spoken have less effect than words sung ? What is the
marvellous power of music to ' raise a mortal to the skies ' ? Read
a hymn and sing a hymn, and note the psychological difference. The
simpler the strain the more marked is the increase in pathos, spirit,
warmth, and love ; the more complex the music the more the mind
is distracted from the thoughts. In this the senses take the upper
hand and the definite yields to the vague ; in that reason controls all.

Regarding, then, the music of worship as a help to prayer, and as
a means of attaining union with God, we get to the fundamental
difference which exists between sacred music and all other kinds of
music. In the act of worship I want a help, not a distraction. The
true artist will recognise this and will supply the need ; he will not
thrust upon me something else, beautiful as it may be in its own line,
which does not suit the end for which it is to be used. If I want
bread what is the use of giving me a stone ? It is, therefore, from
the standpoint of worship that the question of sacred music must be
judged and the dispute between the Sovereign Pontiff and the novelist
settled.

In the Instruction on Sacred Music the Pope lays down certain
principles for our guidance ; and I can safely leave it to my readers
to decide who has the real artistic instinct, Pius X. or Mr. Bagot.
The Pope says :

Sacred music should possess, in the highest degree, the qualities proper to
the liturgy, or, in particular, holiness, goodness of form, from which its other
VOL. LVI — No. 329 E

50 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

quality of universality spontaneously springs. (1) It must be ho'y; and
therefore must exclude all profanity, not only in itself, but in the manner in
which it is presented by those who execute it. (2) It must be true art ; for
otherwise it will be impossible for it to exercise on the minds of those who
listen to it that efficacy which the Church aims at obtaining when admitting
into her liturgy the art of musical sounds. (3) It must, at the same time,
be universal, in the sense that while every nation is allowed to admit into
its ecclesiastical compositions those special forms which may be said to
constitute its native music, still these forms must be subordinated, in such a
manner, to the general characteristics of sacred music that no person of any
nation may receive an impression other than good on hearing them.

So far for the Pope as an artist.

Now let me take some of Mr. Bagot's examples. For the moment
I put out of the question that they come under the Church's ban.
But, as he judges the matter from what he is pleased to call the
artistic side, I will take him on his own ground.

The drinking song from La Traviata was composed by Verdi for
quite another end than to be played at the most solemn moments of
Catholic worship. I need not recall the scene nor the subject of the
opera. To associate such music with the Mass is repulsive to every
feeling of decency, while to divorce it from its surroundings is, indeed,
an ' insult offered to music.' Verdi would be the first to protest
against such a caricature of his conception. Then, ' A Movement,'
from Bizet's L1 'Arlesienne, is turned into a Sanctus — a hymn which
recalls the solemn worship of angels round about the Throne. Might
not Bizet complain :

This does not represent my idea at all. That melody and those harmonies
were conceived as illustrating one particular train of thought : they are one
distinct conception. You have no right to misrepresent me or to vilify me as
an artist. Were I to undertake to set the angelic hymn to music I should
approach the task in a very different frame of mind to what I had when
I penned that part of my opera ?

Such adaptations are artistic outrages which no self-respecting
musician would attempt. Such things are done, more's the pity.
That there were also days when a Mass was patched together from
Le Nozze di Figaro and another from Don Juan is a curious contribu-
tion to a study on music and morals. That they do these things in
Italy is an indication of the degradation of art in that once artistic
country ; and I will make a present of them to Mr. Bagot, together
with the paper flowers, tinsel, sham marbles, stucco, and theatrical
scene-painting which also find favour in that country. For my part,
I am proud, as a musician, to take my stand by the side of the fear-
less Pius X., who recalls us to a better sense of true art. We need
reform here in England as well as elsewhere.

Mr. Bagot's blunders will perhaps better be recognised when I set
forth what the Pope really has done. He does not confine us, as one
would think from Mr. Bagot's article, to the plain song ; he allows

1904 THE POPE AND THE NOVELIST 51

the classical school, of which Palestrina and our English Byrde are
the supreme types, and also modern music, provided it contains nothing
profane. Pius X. is no dreamer of the past. He says :

The Church has always recognised and favoured the progress of the
Arts, admitting to the service of worship everything good and beautiful
discovered by genius in the course of ages — always, however, with due regard
to the liturgical laws. Consequently modern music is also admitted in the
Church, since it, too, furnishes compositions of such excellence, sobriety, and
gravity that they are in no way unworthy of the liturgical functions.

You wouldn't think it, but Pius X. has committed the grave
artistic error of saying that the music of the Church is one thing and
the music of the world is another. And he has done worse ; he has
acted up to his conviction.

Then, again, the use of an orchestra is not forbidden, but it is
regulated according to existing laws. For instance :

The employment of the piano is forbidden in church, as is also that of
noisy or frivolous instruments, such as drums, cymbals, bells, and the like.

A very fair orchestra can be got together without these. I would
that such a law, as to the piano, had been enforced in Spain when I was
asked to celebrate a Gild Mass. As soon as I began the service a
pianist struck up a very cascade of arpeggios, and then treated me
to a fantasia on Carmen, with other choice morceaux of a strictly non-
liturgical character. I did not find the Toreador's Song any help to
devotion ; neither do I fancy that Italians find it in La donna e mobile.
I must leave Mr. Bagot to enjoy whatever spiritual advantages he
can gain from listening to the drinking song in La Traviata, or from
a Mass faked up from U Arlesienne in a London sanctuary ' where a
shilling is charged for a front seat.' By-the-by, when hearing the
last-named composition (I use the word in its primitive sense) how,
from a front seat, could he judge ' by the faces of the members of
the congregation ' that it was a decided success, not merely artistic,
but also devotional ? I fear that, on this occasion at least, the ' most
brilliant style ' of the composition interfered somewhat with his own
private devotions. I may be wrong.

The plain song, which Mr. Bagot affirms ' has never been and
never can be a form of music which evokes answering chords in the
heart of the vast majority of the laity,' has, however, not only evoked
the hearty admiration of great musicians (I do not say all parts of
it), but has also been the staple music in the Church for more than a
thousand years ; and I don't think, if we take, say, France, or England
before the Reformation, that it can be said that ' answering chords '
were not evoked, nor that men did not find, when before the altar,
through the plain song, a means of forgetting the cares of the world.
Go over, for instance, to Normandy or Brittany and listen to-day,

E 2

52 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

and then judge how far Mr. Bagot is correct in his statements. There
is nothing like facts to correct fancies. The truth is, as Shakespeare

QO TTQ *

The plain song is most just : for humours do abound.

I can well understand that those who go to our churches ' for the
gratification of the eyes, the ears, and possibly the nose,' as Mr. Bagot
puts it, don't care for the plain song.

Candidly, it is not meant for them nor for bored converts. It is
meant for those who come to pray.

Let us have no more vapourings about ' the superficial treatment
to which the most divine of the arts has been subjected by the authori-
ties of the Church,' or about a practical ' divorce of religion from its
highest earthly coadjutor,' or ' of the total want of artistic discrimina-
tion shown by Pius X. and his advisers.' I find the superficiality,
the divorce, and the total want of artistic discrimination in Rome,
indeed, but not at the Vatican ; but — at Mr. Bagot's address.

Again, I read in the article on ' The Pope and Church Music
some words with which I agree. But let us see how we get on.

The love of melody is strong in all nationalities and in all classes ; and, in
the lower classes especially, mere harmony will scarcely supply its place. We
venture to say that a simple melody, however insufficiently rendered, will
appeal to the sense of the majority of laymen with greater directness than any
harmony will ; and that we have yet to learn that the senses are not very
important factors in any form of religious worship.

Mr. Bagot has yet to learn a few things. Meanwhile I ask : What,
is Saul also among the prophets ? No ; for a few lines on I read that
the plain song is monotonous and lacks melody. To speak of it in
this way is a curious exhibition. One of my objections against the
Gallican chant, as restored by the French monks of Solesmes, is its
over-elaboration. Plain song is anything but monotonous. As for
lacking melody, why, it is essentially melody and nothing else. It
is grave, diatonic, pure and simple melody, with rhythm free and
swinging. It is full of a haunting beauty of an unworldly kind. On
the other hand, harmony of any sort is alien to it, and even the
accompaniment of the organ is contrary to its purely vocal and simple
melodic nature. I grant that to one who seems to accept Verdi's
drinking song in La Traviata as fitting music to accompany a solemn
act of worship plain song may not appeal, for it is unworldly in con-
ception, its ideal is spiritual, and its object is to take men away from
the busy hum of the world and leave them free and undistracted
before the altar. Does not liturgy seem to demand a staid and
solemn diction ? Archaicism, I hold, is one of its most potent charms
and a great factor. Who would think of mingling slang expressions
of the day with the matchless music of the Authorised Version of the
Bible ? If this holds good of the words how much more of the music

1904 THE POPE AND THE NOVELIST 53

which is intended to invest them with a greater soul-searching and
heart-lifting power ?

As plain song is perfect melody and has nothing properly to do
with harmony, while I accept Mr. Bagot's words I must entirely reject
his conclusion as being based on a complete misunderstanding of the
very nature of the plain song itself.

The final error which in his opinion stamps the Papal edict as
ill-advised is to the effect that Protestants will be no longer attracted
to our churches, and that converts will be fewer, and, in fact, that the
Ritualists will get them all. Well, if that be so, my Anglican friends
are welcome to all such, for I am old-fashioned enough to prefer
quality rather than quantity. Some kind of converts, I think,
would lead a more tranquil life outside the Church altogether. They
do us no good ; and it is difficult to see where they find happiness or
how they can ' feel religious when they feel bored.'

If the effect of the new regulations be, as Mr. Bagot prophesies, to
lessen the number of visitors who ' are there for the gratification of
the eyes, the ears, and, possibly, the nose,' I, for one, shall be un-
feignedly glad, for I have no desire to see our houses of prayer turned
into concert halls, or the sacred mysteries of our worship made a
raree show for the stranger within our gates.

Does the Catholic Church organise her worship for Protestant
' ears, eyes, and, possibly, noses ' ? Does she even take them into
consideration ?

Of course there are those who come to listen and remain to
pray ; but when we have so much to do to make our own people
solid Christians we cannot spare the time to go out fishing for whales
with sprats. And how often does it happen that the fish, when
caught, turns out to be but a pitiful red herring !

If the decree be carried out loyally in this country we shall
approach more closely to the old Catholic type of musical service
which has been so largely kept in our national cathedrals — a type
devotional, melodious, sacred, and national withal.

I cannot imagine the organist of St. Paul's or the Abbey playing
the drinking song from La Tramata as a voluntary, or arranging an
anthem out of Bizet's opera. And why should we have a lower
standard ?

If at St. Paul's no singer is allowed who is not a communicant,
why should we, of all folk in the world, be laxer, and evade the
law ? Why should we admit non-Catholics, who disbelieve in the
words they sing, to form part of our choirs and exercise what the Pope
calls ' a real liturgical office ' ? These are anomalies of our present
situation, and show how necessary is some reform.

Why, too, I may ask, should costly choirs be kept up for ' the
e yes, the ears, and possibly the noses ' of the non-Catholics who,
Mr. Bagot says, form the very large proportion of the congregations,

54 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

when our churches are in debt, our schools in danger of being
starved, and our clergy, many of them, living in poverty and want ?

No ; I feel strongly that, thanks to the clear and determined action
of the Pope, it is now possible for us to get rid of what has been a
source of real weakness and undoubted disedification. I don't want
to play to the gallery of the British public, which, after all, will be
more favourably impressed if we follow a higher ideal than we do
at present.

According to Mr. Bagot our people have felt the difficulty, and
some have solved it in the practical way of leaving the High Mass
to the stranger. To take away the cause, and, in the words of the
Pope, to make special efforts —

to restore the use of the Gregorian chant by the people, so that the faithful
may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case
in ancient times,

will result in solid good all round. I would much rather see our
people standing up and joining in a simple melodious plain song Mass
than have them sitting down to listen to the soprano roulading up
the scale or to the basso slowly getting down to his deepest notes.

These things being so, what are we to think of Mr. Bagot' s con-
tention that ' the educated portion of the community, whether Roman
Catholic or Protestant, will openly resent the insult offered to music
by those responsible for this unfortunate and illogical decree ' ? Those
who know the nature and object of sacred music will be grateful to
the Pontiff who has recalled us to the true artistic ideal of the music
of worship as opposed to the worship of music.

ETHELRED L. TAUNTON.

1904

TRAMPS AND WANDERERS

IN a preface dealing with the causes of the French Revolution (Life
of Dantori) Belloc refers to the process of remoulding, which is a part
of living, and which the State as well as the individual must undergo
as a condition of health. ' What test,' he says, ' can be applied by
which we may know whether a reform is working towards rectification
or not ? None except the general conviction of a whole generation
that this or that survival obstructs the way of right living, the mere
sense of justice expressed in particular terms on a concrete point. It
is by this that the just man of any period feels himself bound. . . . This
much is certain, that where there exists in a State a body of men who
are determined to be guided by this vague sense of justice, and who
are in sufficient power to let it frame their reforms, then these men
save a State and keep it whole. When, on the contrary, those who
make or administer the laws are determined to abide by a phrase or
a form, then the necessities accumulate, the burden and the strain
become intolerable.' That such a ' phrase and form ' is embodied
in the ' tramp ward,' as it at present exists, it is the object of this
article to prove, and the reasons why, and directions in which change
is necessary.

Let us first take an illustration from change of function within
the human body. It is well known that we possess within us sur-
vivals of ancient modes of life. Public attention has recently been
directed to one such by the peril of the State. ' Appendicitis ' was a
scarcely noticed disease, among all that flesh is heir to, until it became
a rather proud distinction to suffer ' like the King.' Since then it is
surprising how many cases are heard of. Everyone now knows that
a small tube which represents what in lower animals has a useful
function, is in the human body a death-trap. It is an illustration of
the way in which slow change may make the useful positively harmful.

Let us review swiftly changes in the body politic during the last
few hundred years, and see whether the tramp ward can possibly
fulfil the function for which it was originally intended. Time was
when every Englishman was rooted to the soil. He belonged of right
to some locality as villein, serf, or lord. The community to which
he belonged demanded service of him as protector or as toiler. The
whole of life was framed on the idea of mutual service, combined with

55

56 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

relationship to the soil. This status still remains in our laws of settle-
ment. We pay thousands of pounds annually to remove ' Mary
Browns ' to their parish, in exchange for ' Samuel Smiths ' from
others, the whole apparatus of removal being a subtraction sum as
regards the national pocket. ' Survivals ' are always costly.

Long ago there swept over the feudally organised community the
wind of change, rearranging the social units. The Black Death
decimated the population and made labour scarce, and then arose the
phenomenon of the ' free labourer,' the landless man, who travelled,
offering his labour for hire, eagerly accepted. At first the chief com-
plaint was that he required higher pay, and legislation was directed
to keeping down his wages and re-settling him on the land. He was a
tramp, but one so useful he could not be dispensed with.

But by degrees came other movements, due to the introduction of
manufactures. The art of weaving required wool, and a great diver-
sion of land from agriculture to sheep-farming took place, and other
changes set in. The result was a decreased demand for labour. ' The
landless man ' became a social danger. Unable to support himself,
he took to beggary or violence, and became ' the waster who will not
work but wanders about,' the vagabond, the vagrant. Ejected by
society into freedom, he perversely acquired a taste for it, and bred
children ' on the road.' Probably most of our vagrants proper are
his descendants. He was penalised to an extent far beyond what
modern sentiment would allow, he was pilloried and mutilated, and
even put to death, but still he increased, to the despair of legislators.
Why ? Because social conditions were making him faster than he
was removed.

We are all familiar with the phenomenon of a boil, abscess, or gather-
ing. Matter accumulates and increases, having the power of repro-
duction. As a continual supply is created, it must in some way be
drawn off before healing can take place ; healthy cells replacing the
unhealthy ones. Just so in the body politic, unless some effectual
means are taken to heal a running source of social evil, it festers and
increases.

Fortunately for England she possessed youthful vigour of con-
stitution. She possessed a government not afraid to attack large
problems on a large scale, and to create institutions that could effec-
tually heal. The Poor-law of Elizabeth was a successful attempt to
deal with social evil. It provided ' work-houses ' for the destitute
poor. The principle embodied in it was that no man was to be idle.
The young who were found to be without trade were to be apprenticed
and instructed by ' masters of handicraft.' The old and feeble were
to be cared for, vice was to be suppressed, national well-being — the
common-wealth — was the end in view. Each man was to be anchored
to a parish, where under the observation of his fellows he could live
with every incentive to honest toil. As a matter of fact, distress did

1904 TRAMPS AND WANDERERS 57

disappear : the great majority' of the population settled on the land,
or in thriving industrial communities. There remained only the
decreasing problem of the vagrant, a heritage from the past. It was
necessary to deal with the survivors of the class who had acquired a
taste for vagabondage. All united in regarding them as meriting a
different and severely repressive treatment. Laws were enacted to
prevent private persons from giving doles, except ' broken meats.'
The tramp might receive shelter and a meagre allowance of food in
return for labour. So much it was impossible to refuse him, because
the old virtue of hospitality had to a large extent disappeared, and
monasteries, which used to act as poor men's hostels, had been sup-
pressed. National sentiment then, as now, could not tolerate a starving
man. But he must work for what he ate, and for two hundred years,
until the new era, the old law availed, mainly because there was
during all this time the slow and steady growth of England's indus-
trial supremacy.

It is not my purpose to dwell on the decay of the Poor-law due to
maladministration. To afford relief gratuitously was easier than
to provide work. The effective superintendence of labour was
not understood as well as it is now. Self-interest led men to throw
on the parish part of the wages of labour, social science as yet being
not even in its infancy. The Board of Trade inquiry into the unem-
ployed question gives these three reasons for the failure of the Poor-
law. They lie at the door of its administrators.

It would form a most interesting study to correlate the increase
or decrease of vagrancy to phases of national life, as a sign of diseased
conditions. The main thing to be noted is that during the last hundred
years a further change in national arrangements, characterised by
Arnold Toynbee as ' the Industrial Revolution,' has involved such
differences in the whole structure of our national life that it would
be as absurd to expect the old system to meet the need as to expect
the vermiform appendix to digest for the human body.

Let us consider on what national well-being depends in the new
era. It depends on the Fluidity of Labour. We are no longer an
agricultural and settled people. Modern conditions demand labour
readily accessible, highly differentiated, and very fluid. That is to
say, if there is in any place a scarcity of labour, it is desirable that it
should flow there as speedily as possible. If there is ' demand ' in
one place and ' supply ' in another, it means often workless, starving
men, who, if in another locality, could earn their living readily ; con-
sequently conditions are exactly reversed. What is needed is greater
fluidity. Anything that by opposing ready transit creates or prolongs
distress works harmfully. It is said, for instance, that shipbuilding
is deserting the Thames for the Tyne. Evidently, therefore, the
solution of London's ' unemployed problem ' lies partially in the
direction of the transfer of labour to places whither its industries are

58 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

going. Destitute men who have held on to waning employment as
long as possible must needs migrate to where it is to be found. It
is most desirable that the migration should be as speedy as possible.
Thus in place of a national system to prevent migration we need one
to assist it. Therefore, our present arrangement and regulation of
the tramp ward is obsolete and harmful.

This is a sweeping statement, and the conviction has only been
born of suffering. It has only been reached after encountering the
full measure of the Government regulations for tramps. An account
of this experience appeared (May 1004) in the Contemporary Review.
The system is fitted to produce disablement from ordinary toil. After
two nights it took me nearly a month to recover my normal vigour.
lam now convinced that no mere amelioration of conditions is necessary,
but an entire alteration of our national methods of dealing with
wanderers.

\ -' --s The word ' wanderers ' is used advisedly. There is a vagrant
class, the tramp proper. It is above all things desirable that this
class should not be recruited, either by birth or by the drawing into
it of the members of other classes. The tramp proper is parasitic
and preys on the community. But what is there in our present social
arrangements to prevent his breeding, or the slipping down into
trampdom of individuals from other ranks ? Our tramp wards give
us no control over the tramp. Formerly when population was mainly
stationary he was known as a ' tramp,' now he is indistinguishable
from the ' out-of-works.' He mixes with the genuine working-man
' down in his luck,' to the latter's great detriment, and crowds into
our slums in winter. The tramp proper in our days may fare uncom-
monly well, it is the genuine working man who suffers. It is easy to
gain a living in numerous ways if you tell lies and prey on the public,
or earn a precarious livelihood by hawking. That ' diffused justice,'
of which Belloc speaks, sees something is wrong and will not refuse
doles or charity. The supplementing of State provision for destitu-
tion on every hand by an unorganised system of charity is a state of
things not to be desired. Yet as a phase in national progress it is
eminently useful, for it is our English way of developing new organs,
and testing their use. We put out feelers in different directions, and
by and by we find they have prepared the way for national institu-
tions. But the burden of these supplementary institutions is increas-
ingly felt, and amounts to a second Poor-rate, resting mainly on
members of society humanitarian in sentiment. Yet even this does
not avail. Distress accumulates.

Is it not evident that we face once more the Elizabethan problem
of a national adaptation of institutions to meet a national need ?

What helps have we to the right solution of our problem ? Let
us first examine the direction in which the tramp ward is unfit. We
may^state that it acts as an incentive to the wrong sort of migration.

1904 TRAMPS AND WANDERERS 59

It is altogether misleading to regard it as a provision for destitution.
The man or woman who sleeps in a tramp ward, who is honestly seek-
ing employment, needs above everything to be allowed to stay in one
place sufficiently long to search for work. It is stated by observers-
in different parts of England, and by the wanderers themselves, that
the character of the inmates of our tramp wards is changing. It is
no longer to the same extent the genuine tramp who frequents the
workhouse. He, unless he is very ' hard up,' can beg or obtain 4rf.
for a common lodging-house. He hates and avoids the workhouse.
But the poor incapable, inefficient, or displaced worker (and this class
increases) gets pressed down ; he parts with all he possesses ; he
becomes shabby and cannot get work ; by and by he enters a
tramp ward. What can he do but go on to another ? Therefore,
he becomes a tramp, but not a voluntary one at first. This tramping,
however, brings him inevitably into contact with the outcast class, and
acts as a speedy education. If he has any brains he becomes a tramp
proper and learns to prey on the community. Therefore, we may
style our present system our ' National Tramp Manufactory.'

There are six items in the indictment of the tramp ward which
work together to make it almost impossible for those who drift down
into it to earn an honest living if they wish to. Each item may have
altered seriously for the worse since the tramp ward was instituted.

First the diet, which amounts to semi-starvation. It must not be
forgotten that a relative change may make what is eatable in one
generation utterly distasteful to another ; our working classes usually
eat some sort of butter with bread. White bread is less sustaining
than the older forms of brown bread. Probably the old bread and
' skilly ' was much more palatable and nutritious than the present
white bread and thick gruel, and much nearer the ordinary diet of
the very poor labourer. The absence of drink amounts to torture.
Probably the old thin ' skilly,' approaching to ' oatmeal drink,' served
both as food and drink, was not distasteful. By making the ' skilly *
better, Guardians have really deprived the diet of sufficient moisture.
Water may be, but is not always, attainable ; it is not now our cus-
tomary drink. Half the food allotted is not, and cannot be, eaten
for want of moisture. Wise tramps take in tea and sugar, but are
dependent on kindness for hot water. They often cannot obtain
it. No one who has not tried can imagine the longing for the ' cup
of tea ' which is now our national custom for two meals in the day.
I believe workhouse inmates also suffer from similar deprivation, and
that this is one of the reasons for frequent intoxication on ' liberty
days.' The first impulse on release is to seek a drink.

Secondly, there is an alteration in the standard of cleanliness. The
bath and stoving were certainly not Elizabethan characteristics. The
bath as a sanitary precaution is good enough, and often valued, but
it is given under conditions that are not health -producing, often

60 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

the reverse. Exemption may be claimed for positive illness, but
short of this everyone knows that care should be exercised in
bathing. To the weary traveller, cold with waiting for admission,
a hurried bath is administered ; in some cases food is given before
the bath, which is most prejudicial. There is no convenience for
drying the hair or wrapping up the head. Chilly rooms and insuffi-
cient bed-covering may produce a violent cold. Stoving clothes may
be necessary, but they are often so changed in appearance as to be
almost unwearable, and in their creased condition form a certificate
of the wrong sort for the wearer. It is found possible in shelters to
use other precautions, and those of the tramp ward are neither com-
fortable nor sufficient. It is not the object of the writer to speak
absolutely against the bath and stoving, which may be very desirable,
but only to point out that a heavy cold and crumpled clothing will
not help a person to obtain employment.

There is next the task set. Probably this also has grown in severity
under the mistaken idea that it would put down tramping. At any
rate there now exist weary acres of tramp wards to be faithfully and
immaculately scrubbed ! The older workhouses are much more com-
fortable and acceptable from a tramp's point of view than the newer
ones. Just where the pressure of destitution is greatest, in the large
towns, Guardians often pride themselves on being strict. It saves
the rates, but it does not solve the problem. In the end the rates
suffer in other directions.

I consider that the ordinary female tramp would as a charwoman
earn about 2s. and her food by her day's work. Of course, some
feeble, aged, or ineffective tramps may not be so hard pressed, and
there is a great difference between workhouses. Still, a good day's
work is, as a rule, exacted from both men and women, which would
earn far more than they obtain. A woman issues spent and dirty,
half starved, and incapable of immediate work, she cannot wash or
change her clothes.

There is, fourth, the sleeping accommodation ; a couple of restless
nights is a bad preparation for labour. The plank bed is the punish-
ment of a prisoner, the chain mattress abominably cold. Straw beds
are valued — and no wonder ! Can the public realise that the mere
absence of rest due to an uneasy couch and constant interruptions
to sleep is almost maddening ? Try it, and find out how you will
feel after two nights !

Fifthly, there are the hours. If work is not obtained (and it rarely
can be obtained after the early morning) there is the long weary food-
less day, the walking about for slow hours till six or seven o'clock.
Release on the second day may be early enough to seek work, but it
is not always so. One night's shelter and early release is greatly
desired by the wanderer in search of employment.

Sixth, there is^the entire absence of any attempt to help the helpless.

1904 TRAMPS AND WANDERERS 61

Bare food and shelter are given in exchange for more than their value
in work. But the stranded unfortunate is left just as helpless, more
hungry, more thirsty, with clothes in worse condition. Is this worthy
of a Christian country ? Nations are to be judged by their treatment
of the destitute.

It may be replied that the tramp ward is not intended for this
class. But we have no other provision for the man seeking work
without means. It was publicly stated recently in a prominent
northern paper that it had been ' demonstrated ' that there was no
need for men to sleep elsewhere.

But facts overturn fiction. The number of shelters and chari-
table institutions goes on increasing, and the cry of the homeless is
still in our ears. Everything points to the necessity for an entire
revision of our Poor-law, its correlation with municipal effort, and the
wise and united administration of our scattered charities. Julie
Sutter sketched, in the Commonwealth for April, a scheme for a ' British
National League of Help,' with the main lines of which I am in accord.
But it is not on the clergy of any denomination, or on the Church or
churches as a whole, that the evolution of a new order lies, but on
the nation as a whole, and on those who have undertaken to be ' Guar-
dians ' of national interests as regards the destitute poor lies at the
present moment a tremendous responsibility. They may by rigidly
holding to existing forms block the path of progress so effectually
that no true reform is possible. They may take pride in machinery
perfected and polished which is yet a mill that crushes life and hope
out of thousands of their fellow-countrymen. It is astonishing how
an established institution can outlive use and enslave thought. We
are bound to the customary.

Let us consider the subject from another point of view. In an
illuminating sentence at the close of the one already quoted, Belloc
shows how, if the rigidity of the social organisation exceeds a certain
point, man reverts to his natural state. It is the same in the body :
if diseased conditions in any part become acute, ' matter ' forms.
The drilled and disciplined unitary cells of the body break loose into
primitive fecundity, and multiply as a lower form of life. Inflamma-
tion sets in.

The unitary tramp proper is usually, as is well known, a centre
of contagion and infection, physical and moral, and tends to breed
lawlessly. This is the excuse of society for endeavouring to suppress
him. But what is a tramp ? Can we not get near enough to him
as a human brother to understand him and the reason of his being ?
Any form of energy is useful if directed into right channels. It requires
ingenuity, capability, and energy to be a tramp. The distinguishing
feature of the real tramp is that he prefers to be one. He will not
settle into a quiet place in the social economy, he prides himself on
being ' on the road.' ' You will soon get to like it, it is a healthy

62 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

life,' they say to a new comer. All rescue workers know it is almost
impossible to settle down a genuine tramp without compulsion.

Why ? Because tramp life is after all a return to primitive free-
dom, or, as Belloc says, ' a reversion to the natural.' What do we of
the ' classes ' do if we are free to please ourselves ? If our bodily
wants are provided for, we travel, we seek society, the foe we most
dread is ' ennui.' The tramp is a man who has discovered that sub-
sistence is possible combined with freedom.

In him the primitive instincts of our race assert themselves. The
Saxon and the Viking swarmed to England in search of adventure as
well as of nutrition. The Norman followed. We are a nomadic race
at bottom. Does not the breath of spring make us long for green
fields and blue skies and freedom from social trammels ?

In the time of Elizabeth one result of social pressure was that we
swarmed over seas, and the same result has occurred to-day. Kipling
has expressed in a fine poem the feelings of a soldier who has tramped
the veldt and is trying to settle down in England.

Me that 'ave been what I've been,

Me that 'ave gone where I've gone,
Me that 'ave seen what I've seen . . .

Me that 'ave watched 'arf a world
'Eave up all shiny with dew,

Kopje on kop, to the sun
As soon as the mist let 'em through . . .

And I'm rolling his lawns for the Squire
Me!

Me that 'ave rode through the dark

Forty mile often on end
With only the stars for my mark,

An' only the night for my friend . . .
An' the silence, the shine, and the size

Of the 'igh inexpressible skies . . .
Me!

The same spirit breathes in the letter from a tramp, published
in the Daily News of April 18 :

SIR, — I am a tramp, a man without a habitat. No outcry uprose in winter
while the East End sheltered the tramp. When he trudges west after waste
food and a grassy couch, the Press rise up in arms. Each one of these ' bundles
of rags ' on the grass has a history, some an interesting one. I have been
despoiled of the fruitage of my labours ; have acted the roll of errand lad, shop
assistant, clerk, traveller, market-man, barber, canvasser, entertainer, mummer,
song-writer, and playwright. I have dwelt within workhouse, asylum, and
prison walls ; have scrubbed the filthy, tonsured the imbecile, tended the aged,
and soothed the dying. A pedlar of toys, many a time I have enjoyed a night
on a turfy bed, the stars my coverlet, the hedge fruit my morning meal, my
bath the shallow stream. Nature suns the nomad as well as the traveller.
Derelicts, wastrels, paupers, pests, vagrants, bundles of rags !— dub us what men
will— we are human. There are tramps and loafing tramps ; ill-clad and well-
tailored loafers. Make all work— West and East— loafing is infectious.

KOWTON HOUSE. O. Quiz.

1904 TRAMPS AND WANDERERS 63

There is often contempt in the mind of a tramp towards his station-
ary brother, and after all is it undeserved ? Is the passion for freedom
to count for nothing, willingness to endure discomfort rather than
sacrifice contact with nature, the rough sympathy with all sorts and
conditions of men, and the education that comes of a wider human
fellowship ? Are we not all tramps at bottom ? Have not our
Gordons and our Stanleys much of the tramp about them ? Suppose
we are suppressing valuable social units whose energy from childhood
would have expanded if diverted to useful channels ? Has not every
age needed its outlet into this kind of existence ; the Crusades, coloni-
sation, exploration ? May we not say with reverence that the Highest
Life ever lived was that of a tramp ; have not some of the closest
approximations to it, notably that of Francis d' Assisi, involved tramping
also, because wide contact with men of low estate breeds not contempt
but fellowship ? Let us recognise that minds which have an affinity
for this kind of life have their function in our national economy.
Suppose our population was to settle down wholly, and that the ancient
spirit which longs for ' new worlds to conquer ' were to die out. Should
we not be ' like dumb driven cattle,' and perish of deadly dulness ? Is
the life of a slum-dweller to be preferred to that of a tramp ? Are his
chances for life greater ? To breed infectives is as bad as to breed
tramps. It is said that wanderers are increasing 100 per cent. It is
the sign of need for social vent. Each individual who escapes to the
tramp life is not likely to return to normal conditions unless his return
is greatly facilitated, or he is given some outlet to freedom. They
breed freely, and we support their children. But is this tendency
to wander wholly to be repressed ? Can we repress it under modern
conditions ? Germany has recognised the right of every young man
to go wandering as part of his education. Practically our young men
leave the countryside for ' chances ' in a town. Families are scattered,
thousands of men have to wander. Does it not greatly matter to the
nation under what conditions they live ? If we are to turn this feature
of our times to good account we must no longer aim at repression.
We need a definite circulation, channels by which travel can pass and
yet be reabsorbed into healthy existence — is not this the sign of higher
organism ? We need to give play to the educative influence of travel
and of free contact under right and healthy conditions. We need to
catch our tramps young, and hold out hope to them, to pass them
on to the life of soldier, sailor, colonist, after a period of compulsory
training to make the ineffective effective. We need to part with our
repugnance to the wanderer (let us drop the name ' tramp ') and
utilise him, recognising that he may be, if we treat him rightly, our
best and not our worst, and that deadly stagnation is a national evil
to be dreaded ; that the modern stagnation of a dependent popula-
tion, divorced from nature, without education and without resource,
festering in slums, may be far worse than the ancient evil of the

64 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

tramp. We must drain our slums, we must encourage a quick and
easy transit from one place and one occupation to another. If we
suppress tramping, we encourage stagnation, unless we create also
well-defined and natural channels for the original and primitive
instinct, which is the heritage of our English race, to develop health
fully and function safely. It is astonishing how a system has power
to enslave the thought even of the educated, and outlive use. The
vague sense of justice of thousands may be on the side of change,
yet the power of a cast-iron system holds back reform. This spells
revolution in the end.

How shall we steer our country into quiet waters ? In what
direction lies true reform ? I believe we have before us the example
of other countries which we may usefully follow. Germany has
covered herself with a network of relief stations and workmen's home s
to facilitate migration of labour, supplemented by labour colonies for
the destitute. Belgium and Holland have their national treatment
of the vagrant problem.

I will put the solution in the form of a series of propositions :—

(1) In every town there should exist sufficient accommodation
on any night for the restful sleep of every person for the time resident
there. Every person who sleeps in the open or under insanitary con-
ditions is during the next day a centre of contagion, a menace to public
health.

(2) It is impossible to expect private enterprise to provide suffi-
cient and sanitary accommodation. Ebbs and flows in the tide need
to be calculated for, therefore in addition to all private shelters or
lodging-houses being efficiently supervised, there should be municipal
accommodation up to the extremest point of need. The ancient duty
of entertaining a stranger rests now on the municipality.

(3) It is not desirable that this accommodation should be chari-
table. It should be graded, but earned by work, except in cases of
incapacity from old age, incurable disability, or sickness. These
should be received into the workhouse for special treatment without
delay.

(4) It is desirable to have the shelters or municipal lodgings as
such, independent of the provision of work for the destitute. This
might remain a part of the workhouse system. A certain task rightly
performed might earn sufficient to pay for bed and board. This
combination of relief stations with the right to enter workmen's homes
is the German system. If there was a national arrangement by which
the bare necessaries of life could be obtained by honest toil all excuse
for beggary would vanish.

(5) There should be organised charity in connection with every
relief station. The object of this should be to watch the stream of
humanity, and pick out cases of suffering for individual treatment.

Watching the stream as it flows through our national sieves, the

1904 TRAMPS AND WANDERERS 65

relief stations, we shall find four main classes requiring separate
treatment.

There is, first, the degraded vagrant proper, identified by his
abhorrence of work, by his turning up at relief station after relief
station, or shirking them and preying on the public. We will give
him a waybill for identification, as sketched in Julie Sutter's plan,
and land him in a colony, detaining him for an education, more or
less penal, in honest toil ; we will prevent him from breeding ; and
refuse to allow the children he has to be dragged about the country.
We advocate detention for the loafer vagrant, and, if possible, re-
demption to honest toil.

There is, secondly, the incapable. The man or woman who cannot
work deserves pity ; the blind, the epileptic, and feeble-minded need
care, with a curtailment of liberty, if morally incapable, to prevent
the passing on of hereditary defects to a degenerating offspring ;
but they need the tenderest help we can give, and all possible compen-
sation for a hard lot. We advocate true charity to the disabled.

There is, thirdly, the ineffective, the man or woman, ill-trained or
ill-placed. We need wisely to guide each life to the right spot, to fit
each one in by national bureaux of industry, to provide effective
education for the new generation, to give increased mobility to meet
fluctuations of work, and to look after those who have no personal
initiative. We advocate the utilisation of the ineffective.

There is, fourth, the genuine skilled out-of-work man, ' worth his
salt.' We need for him some such regulation of municipal enterprise
as will provide a true labour market, to equalise employment in times
of scarcity, and tide over the periods when, as John Hobson points
out, there is a ' temporary simultaneous glut of land, labour, and
capital.' We advocate the equalisation of the labour market for the
true out-of-works. Part of this provision lies at the door of the muni-
cipality. May we hope for wise ' Councillors ' in our national time of
need ? Part lies at the door of the Poor-law authority. May we hope
there will be ' Guardians ' conservative, not of institutions, but of
those national instincts of justice which are ever on the side of the
redress of national wrongs ?

Such is our national need. But one word as regards my own
sex. Conditions which press heavily on men press cruelly on women.
It was the fact, constantly borne in upon me by observation, that
women were continually dropping out of the protection of homes, and
being forced by destitution into sin, that led me to investigate the
condition of the tramp. A recent census was taken of the sleeping-
out problem in London. Many men were found, and only few women.
Why ? Is not the number of women in England larger than that of
men ? I believe the answer is a tale of horror. Destitute women
are driven to prostitution. If our national provision for destitution
is harsh and insufficient, it amounts to the perpetual forcing of our

VOL. LVI— No. 329 E

66 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

destitute sisters into a life of vice, and so indirectly to the sapping
of the very foundations of society. The number of lodging-houses
which take women is decreasing. Does it not lie upon us as a nation
to see that no woman shall be forced by destitution into sin ? Every
week, sometimes every day, there drift into shelters and homes desti-
tute sisters ; girls, many of them very young ; willing and eager to
earn their living ; hungry, almost without clothing ; tempted,
sometimes fallen ; dropped out of homes, bewildered, friendless, but
willing to take a helping hand. Who but such as these need ' guar-
dians ' ? Shall we consider that the mere administration of a rigid
law is England's duty ? No ; it has rested too long on one sex only ;
perhaps to that it owes partly its rigidity and harshness. It needs
to be transmuted by woman's love and woman's devotion to the
trifling details of individual need, unto the ' charity that is twice
blessed, that blesses him that gives and him that takes.'

MARY HTGGS.

1904

EDUCATIONAL CONCILIATION

AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY

I HAVE more than once predicted in the pages of this Review that the
best of the Anglican clergy would in the end throw over the Educa-
tion Act. I am still of opinion that they will do this in the end, but
I am compelled to admit that the end is long in coming. A year and
a half ago they were irritated by the Kenyon-Slaney Clause and uneasy
at the possible effect on religious teaching of the introduction of repre-
sentative managers. Six months later they were alarmed at the
apparent strength of the Opposition and the possible advent of a Govern-
ment pledged to amend the Act in an undenominational sense. To-day
these causes of dissatisfaction seem to have lost much of their force.
The Education Act has come into operation, and in the majority of
cases no great change has followed. The Kenyon-Slaney Clause has
hardly ever been invoked. The county councils have for the most part
been careful to consult the wishes of the foundation managers. The
Act has proved more tolerable than the clergy expected, and the recent
recovery in the position of the Government has made them hopeful
that it will at least not be altered for the worse. Added to this, the
attitude of the Nonconformist majority and the general acceptance
of Dr. Clifford's leadership have made the dividing line between them
and Churchmen very much sharper. Even those who recognise the
unsatisfactory character of the present settlement, and the probability
that in the long run it will lower the standard of religious teaching
in Church schools, seem disposed to put aside the idea of an educa-
tional compromise as not at present within reach.

It is an unfortunate moment, no doubt, in which to preach con-
ciliation. And yet this is the object of the present article. Some
little time since a small conference of Churchmen and Nonconformists
met to consider whether they could discover some common ground,
the acceptance of which would involve no sacrifice of principle on
either side. A committee was appointed to draw up a scheme, and
the outcome of their labour is a draft Bill, the contents of which I am
allowed to use, though it has not yet been submitted to the conference.
This Bill seems to me to contain all the essential provisions of a reason-
able concordat. It gives the Nonconformists what they ask, and all

67 F2 "

68 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY July

that it claims in return is a frank recognition of the principle of religious
equality. I do not say that all its provisions are equally essential,
but there is not one of them that really comes into conflict with the
civil or religious conscience.

The object of the Bill, as explained by the introductory memo-
randum, is twofold. On the one hand it introduces public manage-
ment into all schools ; on the other it sets up absolute religious equality
between them, and aims at making adequate provision for the universal
teaching of religion. Supposing the Bill to become law, all schools
deriving support from the rates would become provided schools,
those now known as non-provided schools being handed over to the
local Education Authority on equitable terms. The managers of
these, as of other schools, would be appointed by this authority, and
all the teachers would be chosen without reference to their religious
belief. Religious equality is secured by the repeal of the Cowper-
Temple Clause and an enactment that all religious or ethical teaching
shall be provided and paid for by religious or other bodies, singly or
in combination — the parents of each child being left to say what kind
of religious teaching they wished it to receive. It is probable that
some schools will decline to come under public management. These,
of course, would not be affected by this Bill. But in the event of
their being allowed to receive public support on special terms, while
remaining outside the Act, whatever is given to one denomination
must be given to all. The facilities for religious teaching consist in
fixing a time in which it is to be given, and in allowing individual
teachers on the staff of the school to give the religious lesson provided
that they are paid by the religious or ethical body which employs
them.

This memorandum sets out the main contents of the Bill, but
to make sure that they will be understood I will give the chief pro-
posals in the actual words.

Notwithstanding (says Clause I.) anything to the contrary contained in the
Education Acts 1870 to 1903, or any of them, all public schools maintained but
not provided by the local Education Authority . . . shall be deemed to have
been so provided.

In this way all rate-aided schools will pass, so far as management
is concerned, out of the hands of their present owners into those of
the local education authority. This authority, however, may pay
the fair annual value of the schoolhouse by way of rent, and it may
also purchase it if the trustees consent, at a price to be settled, if
need be, by arbitration. By Clause II. the purchase-money is to be
applied

according to a scheme to be settled by the Charity Commissioners in confor-
mity with such of the trusts upon which the school-house was formerly held as
were not trusts for secular education.

1904 EDUCATIONAL CONCILIATION 69

Clause III. repeals the Cowper-Temple Clause and makes it

the duty of the local Education Authority (a) to afford facilities for the duly
accredited teacher of any religious body, or combination of religious bodies, to
give separate religious instruction in every public elementary school within its
district to such of the scholars as shall be required by their parents to receive
such instruction, and (b) to afford similar facilities to such body or bodies for
the holding of separate Sunday schools in the school so far as is practicable,
having regard to the accommodation of the school-house. Provided that no
part of the cost of such instruction shall be borne by the local Education
Authority. The time devoted to religious instruction shall be at least three-
quarters of an hour at the beginning or end of each school-day. Secular
instruction shall be provided contemporaneously with such religious instruction,
and any child whose parents shall not desire him to receive any religious in-
struction shall be required to attend such secular instruction instead.

I submit that this Bill suggests a settlement of the education
difficulty which ought to satisfy all parties except, it may be, fanatical
secularists. What are the objections raised by Nonconformists to
the Act of 1902 ? That it gives local money without adequate local
control; that, in appearance at all events, it appropriates local
money to the support of schools belonging to particular denomina-
tions ; that, in order to secure the teaching proper to such denomina-
tions, it permits them to impose a religious test upon the head teacher
in each school. Every one of these objections is met by this Bill.
The managers of every school will be appointed by the local Education
Authority. Not a fraction of the rates can be spent, even in appear-
ance, on the provision of religious instruction of any kind in any
school. And as the teachers will all be appointed, mediately or
immediately, by the local Education Authority, no question can be
asked as to their religious belief. What is there in this settlement
to which a Nonconformist can consistently take exception ? Church
schools disappear, and in their stead we have in every parish in the
kingdom a school wholly under public management and forbidden
to show any favour or give any advantage to any one religion over
another. Under the present law these principles are necessarily
disregarded in single-school districts. A majority of the managers
belong to a particular denomination ; no religion other than that
of this denomination can be taught in the school ; and yet the school
is maintained out of public funds. The truth is that the present
provisions for elementary education are only suited to towns, and to
a condition of things which, even in towns, has seldom really existed.
If we imagine the educational need supplied in the main by schools
built by the denominations, so that only the fringe of children whose
wants are not met in this way attend schools of the present provided
type, the co-existence of two distinct classes of schools might be
accepted as a working settlement. But it is altogether inapplicable
to country districts where, more often than not, there is only one
school for the children, whatever may be their denomination, and

70 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY July

Nonconformist parents have in consequence to choose between reli-
gious instruction which is not theirs and no religious instruction at all.
And even in towns it is only applicable in theory. The denomina-
tional system assumes that Church children will go to Church schools,
Roman Catholic children to Roman Catholic schools, Nonconformist
children to Nonconformist schools. In this way all the children in the
place would be taught the religion of their parents, and the provided
school would take only those whose parents had no preference for
any definite religion. Whether such a system as this ever presented
itself to the imagination of any of the authors of the Act of 1870 it is
impossible to say, but if it did it never took shape anywhere else.
The denominational need was never supplied except in part, and the
Board schools went on gathering in an increasing number of children
belonging to various religions. The dual system broke down from the
start.

The authors of the Act of 1902 had the choice of abolishing or
tinkering this system. Unfortunately they chose to tinker it. Pro-
vided schools were given a more important place in the system, but
in return for this the voluntary schools were bidden to look to the
rates for maintenance except as regards structural repairs or additions.
How this compromise has worked there is no need to say. The moral
may be studied in the records of the Welsh county councils and in
the incidents of Passive Resistance.

A proposal of compromise must come from someone, and hitherto
neither side has liked to take the first step. Nonconformists declare
that they have no evidence that Churchmen are willing to entertain
such an offer. Churchmen declare that it is useless to make sugges-
tions until there is some reason to suppose that they will receive fair
consideration. The framers of the Bill here described have come
forward under the pressure of a strong conviction that the prospect
of the settlement they desire is likely to grow fainter as time goes on.
They think that their proposals are reasonable and just, that they
remove the grievances of which Nonconformists complain, and give
Churchmen an opportunity of looking after children whom the growth,
actual and prospective, of provided schools is rapidly taking out of
their hands. If it can be shown that they are mistaken in any parti-
cular, they are willing to recast that part of their scheme. They put
forward their proposals in the hope that Churchmen may be induced
to make them their own, and that Nonconformists may be willing
to join in pressing them upon the Government. They are fully aware
that no settlement of this magnitude can possibly be brought to a
conclusion by any private action. All they ask is that a plan, the
general acceptance of which would end a most mischievous contro-
versy, shall not be put aside without full consideration.

If we were to judge by their published statements, we might well
despair of either side conceding anything. Churchmen point to the

1904 EDUCATIONAL CONCILIATION 71

successful working of the Act in this or that county ; Nonconformists
reckon up the occasions on which this or that champion has seen
his goods taken in execution rather than pay the Education Rate.
In such a case as this common sense teaches that the man who has
most to lose by holding out is the man to come lorward with pro-
posals of compromise. Let us see how this rule works out when
applied to the Education Act. The view that the clergy seem to
take is that their strength is to sit still. The excitement and opposi-
tion aroused by the Act will die away by degrees. Even Passive
Resisters will in time come to a wiser mind, and Mr. Lloyd-George
and the Bishop of St. Asaph will feed lamblike in the same statutory
pasture. Meanwhile the clergy retain their schools — in most cases
— and when the crisis is over all will go on as before. It is always
well to take note of what your adversary thinks of your position,
and it is evident that the Nonconformists are not of opinion that the
clergy have anything to gain by delay. If they were we should long
ago have seen them coming forward with proposals of their own.
That they have not done so shows that they at least have no fear
that time has anything good in store for the Church, and for that very
reason no desire to end the controversy quickly.

Three alternative possibilities may be suggested in regard to the
Education Act. The first is that a Liberal Cabinet comes into office
after the dissolution. Even Mr. Chamberlain thinks this a probable
contingency, though he couples with it the prediction that the Cabinet
thus formed will not hold office very long. But even if this prediction is
fulfilled to the letter, it contains very little comfort for the clergy. The
Liberals may have but a short term of office, but, at all events, it will be
long enough for the amendment of the Education Act. The most
sanguine Churchman can hardly expect that, if after this Mr.
Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister, he will care to restore the present
strife. If the next Government amends the Act, the next Government
but one may be trusted not to amend it back again. The second possi-
bility is that the dissolution makes no change in the position of parties,
and that, for some time longer at all events, the Act remains unaltered.
Is this a prospect to be regarded with satisfaction by Churchmen ?
It means, for one thing, the continuance of the present conflict between
the Welsh County Councils and the Government. If this conflict
were to be carried on in the manner in which the Carmarthenshire
County Council began it, the Government might easily have the best
of it. The very clever Bill which is now before Parliament would
make short work of opposition conducted on these lines. But the
Carmarthenshire County Council has already found out its mistake.
It has accepted the less violent but more effective policy favoured by
Mr. Lloyd-George, and the Principality is now busy in seeing how far
it can go towards starving Voluntary schools without losing the grants-
in-aid which the Government is compelled to make to the County

72 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

Councils so long as they do not openly break the law. It may be objected
that Wales is not England, and that its example is not likely to be
followed in England. That is true, no doubt, of many local councils,
but it is by no means true of all, and, even if it were, the resources
of Nonconformity would not be exhausted. Have we any reason, for
instance, to think that the case of the Isle of Wight will stand alone ?
There was no disobedience to the law here. The County Council
simply called upon the managers of certain Voluntary schools to
make necessary additions to their buildings. The managers tried in
vain to raise money for this purpose, and under the Act of 1902 their
schools would thereupon have become provided schools. It would
have been very much better if they had allowed the law to take its
course, since the incident would then have shown how injuriously the
Act is likely to affect Church schools. They preferred, however, to
capitulate on terms which are almost indistinguishable from sur-
render. In these professedly Church schools undenominationalism is
taught every day by the regular paid teachers, while on one day in the
week the parson comes in as a volunteer and teaches those children
whose parents desire his services. Education does not promise to
become less costly, nor will the official demands in the matter of cubic
space and sanitary requirements grow less stringent. Consequently,
cases like that in the Isle of Wight may be expected to multiply, and
each one of them will be another step towards the establishment and
endowment of undenominationalism in elementary schools.

The third possibility is the most formidable, though not the most
probable, of the three. It is that the Nonconformists will find out
the mistake they have made in resisting the Act, and apply themselves
to making full use of its provisions. The Church of England owes a
great debt to the Nonconformists for the line they have taken in
reference to the school rate. If they had welcomed the addition of a
representative element to the management of every Voluntary school,
and had made the most of the opportunity thus afforded them, un-
denominational religion would in a very short time have been established
and endowed in more than half the Church schools in the kingdom.
A clergyman must be a man of strong religious convictions or strong
fighting instincts if he prefers war to peace. Yet in thousands of
parishes this would have been the choice he would have had to make.
The two representative managers would have pleaded that religious
unity would be promoted by making the basis of the religious teaching
the same for all the children in the school. In that case, of course,
the teaching must be undenominational, but the clergyman would be
free to give further instruction to those children whose parents wished
them to receive it at any time which did not interfere with the routine
work of the school. By this plan controversy would be avoided, and
the whole teaching staff would be able to take part in the religious
lessons. This is what would have happened if Nonconformists had

1904 EDUCATIONAL CONCILIATION 73

helped to work the Act instead of resisting it. This is what would
happen if at any future time they determined to change their policy.
Even if they remain as hostile to the Act as they are now, the whole
drift of lay opinion is towards undenominationalism. The only people
who really dislike it are High Churchmen and Roman Catholics —
neither of them numerically formidable — and wherever an arrange-
ment is proposed between a Church school and a County Council,
the acceptance of rate-paid undenominational teaching for the whole
school, while leaving the clergy free to give voluntary instruction out
of school hours to those children whose parents expressly ask for it,
is pretty sure to form part of it. With such a system as this, what
estimate is a practical nation likely to form of the relative value of
denominational and undenominational teaching ? They see the one
paid for by the State and given, as part of the school curriculum and
by the regular staff, to all children not expressly withdrawn from it under
the Conscience Clause. They see the other given, outside the school
curriculum and by school teachers receiving no pay from the State, to
those children whose parents ask for something more in the way of
religion than is enough for the majority of children. What conclusion
can they possibly draw except that the State regards undenominational
teaching as something worth paying for, and denominational teaching
as a harmless fancy to be tolerated as long as there are people foolish
enough to cherish it ?

The position, therefore, which the clergy have to face is this :
Where the Church is strong, where the buildings are new and adequate,
where no addition is needed to the teaching staff, where the clergy-
man is a power in the parish and the parents for the most part wish
their children to be taught religion under his direction, all will go well —
as regards that particular school. But at what cost will this success
be purchased ? All around him the fortunate incumbent will hear of
schools being made over to the local Education Authority, and so
ceasing, in fact if not in name, to be Church schools ; nor will he have
any assurance that his own school will in the end escape the same
fate. Its religious character will depend upon the policy of a County
Council re-elected every three years, and of a Board of Education
which reflects the Government of the day ; upon the temper of the
Nonconformists in his parish, which may take its colour from some
distant leader ; upon legislative changes made by a House of Commons
which is the creation of an undenominational electorate. On which
of these shifting sandbanks does he found his hope of keeping alive a
school in which he will teach the full Christian faith as he holds it ?

For these reasons — as well as for the still stronger one that on the
present system they are denied access to schools containing a con-
stantly increasing number of children who have just as much claim
on them as the children of their own schools — this proposal is sub-
mitted to the clergy. If they will make it their own, in any appre-

74 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

ciable number, it has, I believe, a good chance of gaining public
acceptance. If they will have nothing to say to it, it will, at all events
for the present, make no way. It will find, indeed, more acceptance
among Nonconformists than is commonly supposed, since it has
what, in the eyes of some of them, is the supreme merit of securing
equality of treatment for all forms of religion. But, as it runs counter
to the present tendency of public opinion, it is not likely that they
will urge its adoption except as a means of putting an end to educa-
tional strife. Whether it will have this result depends, as I believe,
on the reception the clergy give it. Theirs is the decision, and theirs
will be the responsibility.

D. C. LATHBURY.

1904

A PRACTICAL VIEW OF THE
ATHANASIAN CREED

THE recent debates in the Convocations of Canterbury and York have
again raised the long- vexed question of the use of ' The Confession of
our Christian Faith, called the Creed of St. Athanasius,' in the public
services of the Church. It must, I think, be admitted that in respect
of this creed the clergy are rather hardly treated. Many of them,
perhaps most, disapprove its public use ; their congregations dis-
approve it still more. Diocesan Conferences have declared against
it, or at the best have half-heartedly defended it. And now at last
the Bishops have begun to make speeches or to publish letters and
addresses reflecting upon the creed or rearranging it, or attenuating
some of its phrases, or explaining them away. But, all the while,
the clergy are obliged by a definite rubric to recite the creed in public
services and to recite it on such festivals as Christmas Day, Easter
Day, and Whit-Sunday, when its damnatory clauses are strangely
out of tune with the wishes and thoughts congenial to Christian hearts.
There is, in fact, a strong case for some relief ; but the relief is not
given.

No doubt it is easy to argue that no man is compelled to take
Holy Orders, and that, if a man voluntarily takes them, he has no
claim to get rid of the obligations which they impose.1 But this
argument is hardly conclusive. For it is desirable that men, and
especially earnest and thoughtful men, should be ordained, and that
no unnecessary obstacle should be put in the way of their ordination.
That the Athanasian Creed is such an obstacle will hardly be disputed
by anyone who knows the state of theological feeling in the Universi-
ties ; but if it is, and so far as it is, an obstacle, it is an evil. Nor
are the clergy the only persons to be considered. For it is desirable,
too, that the laity should go to church. If then there are a good
many devout laymen who dislike and resent the public use of the
creed and avoid hearing it by staying away from church, so far again
it is on this account an evil.

It is possible, indeed, that the evil may be exaggerated. The

1 See Dr. Wickham Legg's letter in the Guardian, April 6, 1904.

75

76 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

consciences of some candidates for Holy Orders are almost morbidly
sensitive in the present day. For the doctrinal statements of the
creed are probably not repugnant to anybody who believes the orthodox
Christian faith, and, as believing it, is qualified and inclined to take
Holy Orders. The so-called damnatory clauses, too, have been
officially interpreted as ' to be understood no otherwise than the
like warnings in Holy Scripture.' If so, all that can be said of them
is that they are infelicitously expressed ; for there can be no doubt
that they appear at first sight, and are generally taken, to go beyond
the ' most certain warrants of Holy Scripture,' by which, according
to the 8th Article, the Athanasian Creed may be proved.

But the fact is that it is a mistake to look upon the same words
as bearing always and everywhere the same significance. It often
happens that technical phrases come to be used, not in a literal, but
in a secondary meaning. There have been times when it seemed
natural and necessary to visit theological errors with extreme male-
dictions. The most awful condemnations of heretics excited no
surprise or disgust. It is as certain as any fact of history can be
that the same language which is felt to be terrible and deplorable by
consciences trained in nineteen centuries of Christianity was not so
felt, or was not so felt in anything like the same degree, by the
Christians who first made use of it or first listened to it. The dam-
natory clauses, therefore, of the Athanasian Creed are a heavier
burden upon consciences to-day than they were many centuries ago,
and they will become a still heavier burden as the years and the
centuries pass. For humanity grows more humane ; that is one of
the few clear gains attaching to progress ; men are kinder than
they were, and their theology, too, becomes less rigid, less bitter
than it was.

The great objection, then, to the public use of the Athanasian
Creed is that its language in its natural interpretation is not what
Christians and Churchmen hold to be true. Archbishop Tait, in his
speech in Convocation, put the general feeling well : —

We are to take the clauses in their plain and literal sense. But we do not.
There is not a soul in the room who does. Nobody in the Church of England
takes them in their plain literal sense.

A reasonable person will not indeed deny that in any historical
Church, having a continuous unbroken life of many centuries, formu-
laries may, and often must, be interpreted with considerable latitude.
The language of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, and a fortiori of
the ninth or the fifth century, cannot be altogether suited to the twen-
tieth. The candidate for Holy Orders, and scarcely less the lay member
of the Church, must ask himself, not whether he approves and accepts
every sentence of the Prayer Book in its literal meaning, but whether
he feels himself to be in general sympathy with its language and its

1904 THE ATHANASIAN CREED 77

spirit ; and lie will allow himself the greater liberty, as he reflects
upon the difficulty which the Church has experienced for a long time
in legislating for herself or in getting legislation passed for her through
Parliament. Still, when all is said, it remains an unhappy circum-
stance that Churchmen should be expected on solemn festivals to take
part in strong condemnatory phrases which they do not, and cannot
in their consciences, hold to be literally true.

It is now more than thirty years since the last attempt was made
to meet and solve the problem of the Athanasian Creed. The story
of that attempt is told at full length by the present Archbishop of
Canterbury in the twenty-second chapter of the Life of Archbishop
Tait. Archbishop Tait was himself in favour of rescinding the obliga-
tion to use the creed in the public services of the Church. He was
defeated by the strong opposition of the High Church party under
the leading of Dr. Pusey and Dr. Liddon. Dr. Pusey wrote to the
Bishop of Winchester on the 19th of October, 1871 : ' If the Athana-
sian Creed is touched I see nothing to be done but to give up my
canonry and abandon my fight for the Church of England.' Dr.
Liddon wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the 23rd of December,
1871:

It is not, I trust, obtrusive or other than right in me to state firmly to your
Grace that if this most precious creed is at all mutilated by the excision of the
so-termed damnatory clauses, or degraded — by an alteration of the rubric which
precedes it — from its present position in the Book of Common Prayer, I shall
feel bound in conscience to resign my preferments and retire from the ministry
of the Church of England.

Archbishop Tait, like the statesman that he was, chose in these
circumstances the less of two evils. He preferred sacrificing his own
views upon the use of the creed to breaking up the Church, whose
chief minister he was ; and the creed and the rubric prescribing its
public use have remained without alteration to the present time.

Thirty years have wrought a change of theological opinion. The
liberalising spirit which has passed upon theology has intensified the
antipathy of many devout Churchmen to the frequent public recitation
of the creed. High Churchmen, as they have adopted a new position
in regard to the inspiration of Holy Scripture, have apparently adopted,
or are adopting, a new position in regard to the public use of the
Athanasian Creed. The Bishop of Worcester, at his Diocesan Con-
ference, has spoken in favour of a resolution : ' that the present rubric
governing the use of the Athanasian Creed is the cause of more harm
than good, and should be fundamentally altered.' The Bishop of
Chester, at his Conference, has declared the creed to be in its present
form c an absolute stumbling-block in the way of the faith.'

There is an increasing desire also to bring the Church of England,
in her use of the Athanasian Creed, into greater harmony with the
other Churches of Christendom. At present she insists upon the

78 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

public recitation of the creed thirteen times in the course of the year.
But the creed is not so treated in any other Church of Christendom
(except, indeed, the Episcopal Church of Scotland), nor was it so
treated in the Church of England herself before the Reformation.
It is not similarly recited in the Church of Rome, or in the Churches
of the East, or in the reformed Lutheran or Calvinistic Churches of
the continent of Europe, or in the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland
or in the Nonconformist Churches of England. It is not similarly
recited in the Church of Ireland or in the Episcopal Church of the
United States of America.2 The rubric enforcing its use in the public
services of the Church of England on the festivals now enumerated
in the Prayer Book was the work of the Anglican Reformers. It first
appeared in the second Prayer Book of King Edward VI. It did
not in express terms order the creed to be used as a substitute for
the Apostles' Creed until the revision of the Prayer Book in 1662.
To revert to the more ancient Catholic usage of the creed would be
in accordance with the growing spirit of regard for the principles and
practices of the early Church.

In these circumstances it is matter for thankfulness that the Upper
Houses of both the Convocations of Canterbury and York should have
lately passed resolutions, the one for ' appointing a committee to
consider in what way the present use ' of the creed ' may be modified,
the document itself being retained in the formularies of the Church
as an authoritative statement of the Church's faith ' ; the other, for
' restoring ' the creed ' to its more ancient use as a document for
instruction of the faithful, in such manner as may most fully safe-
guard the reverent treatment of the doctrines of the faith.' 3 These
resolutions are striking in themselves. They indicate a remarkable
advance of episcopal opinion. But there is no reason to think that
the bishops have gone beyond the opinion of the Lower Houses of the
Convocation, or the Houses of Laymen, or the clergy and laity of the
Church everywhere. For still more striking than the resolutions have
been the debates which took place upon them. Almost everybody
who has spoken has expressed himself as sympathetic with the desire
to give some relief to anxious consciences, if only it could be given
without compromising the Catholic Faith ; and nobody has exhibited
anything like the bitterness or wilfulness or the arbitrary irrecon-
cilable spirit which marked the debates, or some of the speeches
delivered in them, thirty years ago. But when men who resist a
policy resist it not because it is wrong in itself, but because of con-
sequences which may possibly flow from it, it has already come half-
way to success. If it should happen that the several parties in

2 Stanley, The Athanasian Creed, pp. 36 sqq. His statements are not entirely
accurate, but even the use of the creed at Prime in the Church of Borne is not a
parallel to its use at Matins in the Church of England.

1 See the Guardian, May 11, 1904.

1904 THE ATHANASIAN CREED 79

the Church came to agree upon a change in the treatment of the
creed, it would still be difficult to determine what the treatment
should be.

Three main proposals of reform have been made : —

(1) It has been proposed to meet the difficulty felt about the creed
by retranslation. Not a few suggested retranslations have appeared.
It will be enough to mention that the Committee of Bishops appointed
more than thirty years ago to consider the use of the Athanasian
Creed put forward suggestions on the 12th of February, 1872, for
certain alterations both in the Latin text and in the English trans-
lation. They proposed in the translation, among other minor changes,

(a) To substitute the word ' infinite ' for ' incomprehensible ' and
the word ' eternal ' for ' everlasting ' throughout the creed.

(6) In verse 1 to read ' Whosoever willeth to be saved ' instead
of ' Whosoever will be saved.'

(c) In verse 25 to read ' There is nothing afore or after, nothing
greater or less.'

(d) In verse 28 to read ' willeth to ' for ' will ' and ' let him think '
for ' must think.'

(e) In verse 29 to read ' faithfully ' for ' rightly.'

(/) In verse 42 to leave out all the words after ' faith ' and to sub-
stitute for them ' which every man who desireth to attain to eternal
life ought to know wholly and to guard faithfully.'

But I am afraid it must be admitted that no retranslation can
solve the question of the creed. The Bishop of Worcester has said,
rightly enough, that ' the objections to the public use of the creed
would not be adequately met by a retranslation.' So, too, the Arch-
bishop of York : ' We can use the most perfect possible translation, but
we cannot touch the difficulties which surround the matter.' For,
in fact, the Latin original is frequently open to the same objection
as the English translation. To take the first two verses only, the
words : —

Quicunque vult salvus esse ; ante omnia opus est ut teneat Catholicam
fidem.

Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque servaverit ; absque dubio in
seternum peribit.

are fully as explicit as ' Whosoever will be saved, before all things it
is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith ; which Faith except every-
one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish ever-
astingly.'

It is, in fact, noticeable that the six professors of theology in the
University of Oxford, who were consulted by the Committee of Bishops,
Dr. Mozley, Dr. Pusey, Dr. Ogilvie, Dr. Heurtley, Dr. Bright, and
Dr. Liddon, in their reply, dated the 30th of November, 1871, avowed
themselves ' unable to make any suggestions as to either the text or

80 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

the translation which may be expected to obviate the objections
raised against the creed.' 4

(2) A second proposed remedy is expurgation.

It is possible, indeed, to draw a marked distinction between the
doctrinal statements of the creed and the damnatory clauses which
'precede and follow them. The doctrinal statements have been some-
times compared to a picture, the damnatory clauses to the frame in
which the picture is set.

Three professors of theology in the University of Cambridge, Dr.
Westcott, Dr. Swainson, and Dr. Lightfoot, in their reply to the Com-
mittee of Bishops, on the 3rd of February, 1872, argued that ' the
admonitory clauses may be treated as separate from the exposition
itself, and may be modified without in any way touching what is
declared therein to be the Catholic Faith ' ; and they ' ventured to
express an opinion that it is the office of the Church to make such
changes in the form of words by which the Faith is commended to
believers as may be required for their edification and for the right
understanding of her own meaning.'

Modern research, however, has tended to show that, whether the
damnatory clauses are or are not as a frame to a picture, the creed
was never issued without them. They are not confined to the begin-
ning .and the end of the creed. To leave out the clauses, and still
more to leave out any doctrinal portion of the creed itself, would be
to set an example of serious and even dangerous moment.

The practice in Westminster Abbey at the present time has been
misrepresented. It is not to recite a revised or amended Athanasian
Creed instead of the Apostles' Creed. It is to recite the Apostles'
Creed at the point where the rubric directs that the Athanasian Creed
should be sung or said in place of it, and to sing a revised version of
the Athanasian Creed called ' A Hymn of the Catholic Faith ' as an
anthem at a later point in the service. The revision of the creed
consists principally in omitting the first two and the last three verses :
i.e. the so-called damnatory clauses and the doctrine of the resurrection
of the body. It must depend, I think, for its justification upon the
assumption that the Ordinary, whether the Bishop, or in Westminster
Abbey the Dean, is legally entitled, upon his own responsibility, to
break the rubric prescribing the use of the creed and to alter the
creed itself. At all events it indicates the difficulty of touching the
creed without touching its doctrinal statements.

(3) The policy of saving the creed by appending to it an explanatory
note has found a great deal of support at different times.

The first Royal Commissioners appointed for the Revision of the
Liturgy in 1689 suggested this addition : — ' The condemning clauses
are to be understood as relating only to those who obstinately deny
the substance of the Christian Faith.' The Royal Commissioners

4 Swainson, Nicene and Apostks1 Creeds, p. 520.

1904 THE ATHANASIAN CREED 81

appointed in 1867 suggested this : — ' That the condemnations in this
Confession of Faith are to be no otherwise understood than as a
solemn warning of the peril of those who wilfully reject the Catholic
Faith.' Among other suggestions emanating from high ecclesias-
tical authorities it is right to mention that of the six professors of
theology in the University of Oxford, who submitted for consideration
in 1871 the following form of a note such as may tend to remove
some misconceptions : — ' That nothing in this creed is to be under-
stood as condemning those who by involuntary ignorance or invincible
prejudice are hindered from accepting the Faith therein declared.'
But this note Dr. Pusey felt afterwards to be unsatisfactory, and it
appears that towards the end of 1872 he advocated another.5 Finally,
the Convocation of Canterbury issued in 1873 a declaration for the
removal of doubts and to prevent disquietude in the use of the creed :

(1) That the creed ' doth not make any addition to the Faith as contained in
Holy Scripture, but warneth against the errors which from time to tune have
arisen in the Church of Christ.'

(2) That ' the warnings ' in the creed ' are to be understood no otherwise
than the like warnings in Holy Scripture, for we must receive God's threatenings,
even as His promises, in such wise as they are generally set forth in Holy "Writ.
Moreover, the Church doth not herein pronounce judgment on any particular
person or persons, God only being Judge of all.'

That declaration was endorsed in 1879. But, as the Archbishop of
Canterbury said in reply to the deputation which waited upon him
on the 31st of last May, it has remained ' a dead letter ever since.'

The Bishop of Chester, in the ' rearrangement of the Athanasian
Creed ' which he has lately ' put forward for consideration by both
the clergy and the laity of the diocese,' has been bold enough to com-
bine a series of explanatory notes with both retranslation and expur-
gation.

It is not possible to set out the case against an explanatory rubric
as interpreting the terms of the creed in clearer or juster language
than was used by Bishop (afterwards Archbishop) Magee in Convoca-
tion more than thirty years ago :

If you have words [he said] which are in themselves clear and simple,
making a particular statement or assertion, it is simply impossible in the nature
of things that you can by the mere exercise of your will put a gloss upon those
words to explain away their meaning. Words mean what logic and grammar
make them to mean. You may debate as much as you please before you issue
a document what the words composing it shall be, but when you have put it out
you have not any right to say ' These words shall mean this or that.' They pass
under the dominion of grammar and must mean what they say. No man has a
right to say that they mean anything more or less than their grammatical
construction implies and declares.

If, then, it is desirable to afford some relief both to clergy and to

5 Life of E. B. Pusey, vol. iv. p. 251 ; compare Life of Archbishop Tait, vol. ii.
p. 152.

VOL. LVI— No. 329 G

82 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

laity in the matter of the Athanasian Creed, and if the three suggested
policies are all more or less unsatisfactory, is there any course which
can be safely recommended ?

The creed is not, as it has been called in an angry pamphlet, ' the
curse of Christendom.' But it is unfitted for use in the public services
of the Church. It is as little suited for public recitation as the Articles
themselves. It is a scholar's creed ; it demands a learning, a thought-
fulness, an historical spirit which cannot be presumed in congregations
including a great variety of men and women, educated and uneducated,
and boys and girls and little children. The language employed in
public worship should always bear its meaning on its face. However
stately it may be, it should convey a clear and just impression to all
who use it. A document which requires to be explained or explained
away as often as it is used is sure to be a source of distress and irri-
tation rather than of spiritual benefit. Anything is better than an
unnatural interpretation of solemn words publicly used. But the
Athanasian Creed is so apt to be misunderstood that it ought not to
be used in public services. It should be a work, not for recitation,
but for reference.8

My own earnest hope is that the Bishops, as the natural leaders of
the Church, will try to meet the difficulty felt about the public use of
the creed. It may not be in their power at present to effect legislation
which would alter the rubric prescribing the recitation of the creed ;
but if they should resolve and declare that in their judgment it is
undesirable to make the public use of the creed any longer obligatory,
they would take such action as would greatly relieve the consciences
of the clergy, who now feel that, if they omit the creed, they are
acting against authority, and, if they use it, that they are doing
what is painful to many members of their congregations, and often
to themselves.

The argument for abandoning the use of the creed in public services
is not only or chiefly that the creed is harshly expressed, or that it
cannot by a forced interpretation be rendered harmless, but that it is
suited for the study, and not for the church. It creates a false impres-
sion, and an impression which grows falser year by year. It inculcates,
or seems to inculcate, a perverted view of the consequences attaching
to Christian faith and Christian duty. It differs widely in letter
and spirit from the simplicity of the Gospel. To quote the words
with which the late Dr. Swainson ends his treatise upon the Nicene
and Apostles' Creeds : ' The dogmas of the Athanasian Creed are
for the scientific theologian; the Bible revelation of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit for every Christian.' Or, to go yet further
back to the famous passage of Jeremy Taylor in his Liberty of
Prophesying : 7

• See the speeches of the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of Durham and
Chester in the Convocation of York, as reported in the Guardian, February 17, 1904.
7 Section ii. p. 74.

1904 THE ATHANASIAN CREED 83

If I should be questioned concerning the Symbol of Athanasius ... I confess
I cannot see that moderate sentence and gentleness of charity in his preface
as there was in the Nicene Creed. Nothing there but damnation and perishing
everlastingly, unless the article of the Trinity be believed, as it is there with
curi osity and minute particularities explained. . . . For the articles themselves,
I am most heartily persuaded of the truth of them, and yet I dare not say all
that are not so are inevitably damned, because citra hoc symbolum the faith of
the Apostles' Creed is entire, and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved :
that is, he that believeth such a belief as is sufficient disposition to be baptized,
that faith with the sacrament is sufficient for heaven. . . . Besides, if it were
considered concerning Athanasius' Creed, how many people understand it not,
how contrary to natural reason it seems, how little the Scripture says of those
curiosities of explication, and how tradition was not clear on his side for the
article itself ... it had not been amiss if the final judgment had been left to
Jesus Christ, for He is appointed Judge of all the world, and He shall judge the
people righteously.

Perhaps no wiser words — none more Christian — could be spoken
than these.

J. E. C. WELLDON.

o 2

84 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

THE VIRGIN-BIRTH

IT has been said by a recent writer that ' the idea of miraculous birth
has fascinated the minds of men in all parts of the world from the
earliest times,' and if the question of such a birth be limited to an
idea, the statement may possibly be true ; but if belief in the virgin-
birth of Jesus Christ as an historical fact is to be insisted on, any
feeling of fascination is likely to give place to one of perplexity and
doubt. Thus, when lately it became known that the vicar of a parish
in England had been constrained to resign his cure of souls because he
was unable to give his assent to the doctrine of the virgin-birth, the
question was very generally asked whether in the present day there
exists any necessity for insisting on a belief in this doctrine, seeing
that to the minds of most men the story of Christ's life and teaching
affords more convincing evidence of his divine mission than the
narrative of any abnormal circumstances attending his birth can
produce. It is not, however, proposed now to discuss either the
possibility of or the necessity for a virgin-birth, nor to ask whether
a purely spiritual influence could cause the birth of a human body :
the question for inquiry here will be limited to the consideration of
the weight or force of the historical evidence on which the narrative
of the virgin-birth of Jesus Christ rests. Now, in attempting to
estimate the value of this evidence, one point is clear beyond
doubt, namely, that of all the writers in the New Testament two
alone make any mention of a miraculous birth, while the accounts of
it given by these two writers are widely divergent. Another point
equally clear is that the first and the last written of the four records
of Christ's life contain no statement of nor any allusion to a virgin-
birth. Thus, the writer of Mark's gospel, which is allowed to be the
most ancient of the four records — it may possibly have been written
within forty years after Christ's death — certainly never heard of the
virgin-birth. And with regard to the fourth and last written gospel,
if this book be the work of John the son of Zebedee, the truth of the
story of a miraculous birth must be altogether discarded ; for if John,
in whose home Mary lived as his own mother, never heard from her
of this wondrous birth, it is manifest that such an event never happened,
since, from the nature of the case, any account of it, to be worthy of

1904 THE VIRGIN-BIRTH 85

credit, must have been derived from Mary herself. But whether the
fourth gospel was written by John the son of Zebedee, or, as seems
more probable, by John the Elder or Presbyter of Ephesus, the fact
remains that, although this gospel was compiled for the express pur-
pose of setting forth and insisting upon the divine side or aspect of
Christ's nature, the writer of it had no knowledge of his miraculous or
divine birth. Now let us first turn to the account given in Luke's
gospel (i. 26-56) : here we have no dream, but the actual appearance
of a heavenly messenger who makes an announcement to Mary which
necessarily cannot long be kept secret ; in fact, Mary does not attempt
to keep it secret, but proceeds to sing what is plainly a paraphrase of
Hannah's song or prayer, recorded in 1 Samuel ii. 1-11, except that
in Mary's hymn there seems to be less exultation than appears in
Hannah's song, though Hannah was rejoicing only in the birth of a
human son. Next, look at the terms in which the communication is
made to Mary by Gabriel ; now, if the narrative intends us to under-
stand, as it clearly appears to do, that the prediction uttered in verse 35
did, in fact, come to pass, then it is plain that Jesus Christ never was
' the son of the man ' — never was the true typical man. and the title
which he chose before all others was therefore misleading and difficult
to understand. Moreover, it is certain that nowhere in the gospel
narratives is Christ ever represented as claiming for himself a miraculous
or virgin-birth (Luke iv. 22-24). Then, again, Gabriel says to Mary :
* The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.'
Could any divine messenger have spoken thus of him who was to live
the life of a village carpenter, and to die the death of a malefactor ?
Such words would have been a stumbling-block in Mary's path all her
days. So with regard to the name ' Jesus.' Gabriel could never have
used this word, which is a Greek rendering of the Hebrew name
' Joshua ; ' — thus in the Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testa-
ment the Book of Joshua is the Book of Jesus. Gabriel in addressing
the Hebrew maid Mary must have used the Hebrew name Joshua
(Yehoshua), not the Greek rendering of it, Jesus (lesous). If so,
Christ's name never was Jesus, but Joshua. Now, the meaning of
the word Jesus seems to be ' healer ; ' if, therefore, 'I^o-oOs (in
Latin 'Jesus') is derived from ia, the root in Idoftat, to heal or
cure, it is not impossible that, Christ being known as ' the healer ' of
Nazareth, his true name soon became lost, and thus to the earliest
Greek converts — Greek Jews of the Dispersion — he was known only
by the name of ' the healer,' ' the Jesus of Nazareth.' Or is it possible
that IHC was a mystic word used in the ancient Greek mysteries,
and was by the early converts from mysticism given to Christ as the
true fount of the ' healing ' water of life ? (John iv. 14). Certain it
is that immortality or life beyond the grave was the great object of
attainment held out in the Greek mysteries, and no one can read
Christ's discourses, as given in the fourth gospel, without noting the

86 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

insistence with which He urges His power to grant eternal life (John vi.
27-58) ; so much so is this the case that it would almost appear as though
some of these discourses were written with the object of supplanting
or superseding the Greek mysteries, that is to say, of drawing into the
Christian fold all those who had made trial of the mysteries and found
them wanting ; in fact, the mysticism is at times so pronounced, and
the invitation to come to Christ so persistent, that we seem to be
listening to one who had himself passed through the mysteries and
had experienced their emptiness and futility (xii. 24-27 ; ch. x.). How-
ever, the consideration of questions such as these relates to the subject
of the passing of Christianity from the Jew to the Greek, rather than
to the particular matter now under discussion. To return, then, to
Luke's account : even in the narrative itself we seem to find evidence
against the story of Gabriel and the miraculous birth. Thus, how
could the writer of verse 35 (ch. i.) repeatedly speak of Joseph as Christ's
father (ii. 27, 33, 41, 43,^48), and why should Joseph and Mary marvel
at the things which were spoken (v. 33), if Gabriel's prediction had
become true ? Or how could Mary, in speaking of Joseph (v. 48), say
to Christ : ' Thy father and I sought thee,' if the tremendous expe-
rience of a miraculous birth had been hers ? Now let us turn to the
account in Matthew, and the first question that will occur to any
reader of ch. i. is this : Why should the life of Christ commence with
the genealogy of Joseph (v. 16), if Joseph were not Christ's father ?
Another point is that the writer of this chapter, or of verses 18 to 25,
seems never to have heard of Gabriel's mission to Mary, for here in
Matthew the vision or dream happens to Joseph, and not to Mary,
and the name of Jesus is communicated to Joseph, and not to Mary,
and an explanation of the name is given to Joseph which was certainly
not given by Gabriel. But what can be said of the writer of verses 22
and 23 (Matt, i.) in citing a passage from Isaiah which cannot
support or bear the construction for which it is quoted ? For it is
clear that the woman (translated 'virgin') in Isaiah vii. 14 is
the same woman — the prophetess — who is spoken of in viii. 3 (Isaiah),
and equally clear is it that no virgin-birth in her case is even suggested,
but quite the contrary. The whole point of the prophecy in Isaiah is
that ' before the child shall know to refuse evil and choose the good,
the land, whose two kings thou abhorrest, shall be forsaken ' (vii. 16 ;
vui. 4), not, that the child is to have a miraculous birth. Moreover,
the writer in Matthew does not quote correctly the passage which he
professes to cite (i. 23), for the words in the Septuagint are ' and thou
shalt call [tcdXeasm— not they shall caU] his name Immanuel,' that
is to say, * you (Isaiah) shall name your son Immanuel ; ' this is clear
from viii. 3, KOI Trpocrff^Oov irpos ryv TrpotprJTiv. The fact seems
to be that this passage in Matthew (i. 18-25) is an interpola-
tion, though possibly an early one ; but whether this be so or not, it is
plain that the information on which the story of Joseph's dream is

1904 THE VIRGIN-BIRTH 87

based must have been derived from a source entirely unknown to
every other writer of the life of Christ — even to Luke, who, though
narrating in considerable detail the history of the apparition to Zacha-
rias, does not say a word about any vision or dream occurring to
Joseph. It seems, therefore, that the idea of a divine or miraculous
birth is of Greek rather than of Hebrew or Jewish origin ,' to the
Hebrew mind it seemed enough that their Messiah should be the son
of David ' according to the flesh,' but to the Greeks a divine birth for
their heroes or saviours was a necessity. It would appear as though
this notion of a miraculous or virgin-birth arose at the time of the
passing of Christianity from the ' world of Syrian peasants ' to the
' world of Greek philosophers,' and gained acceptance as filling a
want vaguely felt by the Greek converts. But that the first followers
of Christ knew nothing of the story of the virgin-birth seems plain
from the fact that there is not the smallest allusion to it in any of the
Epistles ; in fact, in some of them both the argument and the words
used are distinctly against any idea of a miraculous birth (Romans i.
3 ; viii. 3). If, then, the writers of the earliest treatises dealing with
the principles of the Christian faith never heard of the virgin-birth,
and felt no necessity for it, why should belief in such a doctrine, resting
as it does on scanty and unsatisfactory evidence, any longer be
insisted on ?

SLADE BUTLER.'

88 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

INVISIBLE RADIATIONS

THERE exist radiations which differ from the whole category to which
radiant heat and light belong, not so much in their effects as in their
nature ; indeed, they can only be called radiations at all by an exten-
sion of the meaning of that word, for they are really streams of particles
bearing an electric charge and moving in straight lines at various
rates of speed. The extended meaning of the word radiation to
include all ray-like projections, whether material or otherwise, has
now been universally adopted, the word emanation, which might
perhaps have served, being reserved to denote those outgoings from
a substance which >diff use away from it after the manner of a vapour
or scent. That there are such radiations was, in the first instance,
perceived by the phenomena which accompany the passage of an electric
current through a tube containing highly rarefied air. That radiations
similar to those which are thus artificially produced in the laboratory
also exist spontaneously in nature, is a discovery made within the last
few years, the theoretical importance of which can hardly be overrated.

It is now known that all the compounds of uranium, thorium, and
radium continuously emit such radiations, independently of any known
supply of energy from without, and unaffected by temperature or
pressure, or any physical conditions whatsoever. Nor is this radio-
activity, as it is called, the result of chemical action or combination.
The property, which is probably due to changes taking place within
the atom itself, is most clearly manifested in the case of radium, and
therefore it is easiest to study radio-activity by means of radium ; even
as it is easiest to study magnetism by means of iron, although nickel
and cobalt are magnetic substances too, and all substances show traces
of magnetism in an exceedingly slight degree. Very probably radio-
activity is also a property of matter as such, but the feeble manifesta-
tions upon which this surmise is founded were never discovered until
now because there was no reason until now to suspect their existence.

There are three kinds of rays which are produced together by an
electric current in a vacuum tube and found together in radium
radiation. They are : Rays bearing a positive charge, rays bearing a
negative charge, and uncharged rays, which apparently always ac-
company these electric rays, but which belong to a totally different

1904 INVISIBLE RADIATIONS 89

category. In any general survey of these radiations it is difficult to
know what to call them because of the many names they bear. The
negatively charged rays which issue from the cathode of the vacuum
tube are called cathode rays inside the tube, but outside the tube they
are called Lenard rays, because Lenard succeeded in causing them to
pass through a thin window of aluminium, and was thus enabled to
study them under conditions other than those in which they were
produced. Positively charged rays, which appear simultaneously
with the cathode rays, but are much more difficult to identify, are
called channel rays (Kanalstrahlen). because they were first observed
by using as cathode a piece of metal pierced with holes, so placed that
the positively charged particles passed through the holes. Being thus
sharply separated from the negative cathode rays which moved in the
opposite direction, the positive radiation could be rendered distinctly
manifest. The marvellously penetrating rays which arise where the
cathode rays strike glass or metal were called by their discoverer
X-rays. It is now more usual to speak of them as Rontgen rays.
Radiations which are spontaneously emitted are collectively called
Becquerel rays, in honour of the discoverer of radio-activity ; and,
individually, the positively charged rays are called a-rays, the nega-
tively charged rays /3-rays, and the uncharged rays, which resemble
the Rontgen rays, are called 7-rays — a notation suggested by Ruther-
ford. This multiplicity of names is of historic interest, and may be
convenient for the physicist, but it tends to obscure the essential
identity. The first two classes can be called positive and negative radia-
tion, but no generic name seems yet to be in use for the X-rays type.
These radiations are invisible, and were detected by their effects ;
in the first instance, many years ago, by the effect of fluorescence
during the passage of an electric current through a tube in which the
air was so highly rarefied that it could not absorb and check the
radiation proceeding from the cathode. Where the glass wall did
check that radiation the visible effect was brilliant fluorescence. As
all the radiations produce fluorescent effects if they are sufficiently
intense, it is possible to make their path evident by means of fluorescent
screens. The self-luminosity of the purer salts of radium is believed
to be due to phosphorescence caused by the radiations within the
substance itself, but what the connection between the radiations and
phosphorescence really is we cannot tell. Phosphorescence — which
differs from fluorescence only in that it continues for an appreciable
time after the cause which has produced it has ceased to act — is called
forth by the more refrangible rays of ordinary light. If the ultra-
violet part of the spectrum of sunlight, or preferably electric arc light,
be thrown upon a suitable phosphorescent screen, the invisible rays
become visible as violet, blue, or green, and sometimes even as yellow
or red. Stokes gave the explanation of this when he showed that in
every case the incident light is changed by the phosphorescent sub-

90 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

stance into light of longer wave-length. How that change is brought
about we do not know. Many substances only show phosphorescent
effects if they are not quite chemically pure, and this renders it
possible that the cause is some kind of chemical action. On the
other hand, there are facts, such as the luminous effects produced by
cleavage and friction, which seem to suggest a mechanical cause.
Moreover, phosphorescence is, to a certain degree, a function of the
temperature. Thus various materials — paper, for instance — can be
made brilliantly luminous if they are at the temperature of liquid air,
while certain crystals and various kinds of glass become phosphores-
cent without any other agency if they are heated. Again, if a sub-
stance which has been rendered phosphorescent by light be heated
while it is still luminous, the effect is, first, great increase of bright-
ness, and, next, far more rapid extinction. So sensitive is phosphores-
cence to the radiation of heat, that even some of the visible rays at
the red end of the solar spectrum, and still more the invisible heat
rays, suffice in certain cases to extinguish the light, after having first
caused a brief increase of activity. These and other curious inter-
actions between heat, light, and phosphorescence show that the
phenomena are, in any case, extremely complicated. Possibly there
is really a close link between phosphorescence and radio-activity, so
that knowledge concerning the one may throw light on the other.

A principle which has produced great results in modern research
is that it is worth while to seek elsewhere for what is known to exist
anywhere. It was this principle which inspired Becquerel when he
made experiments with fluorescent salts, in the hope of finding radia-
tions which should, like the Rontgen rays, act on the photographic
plate through substances opaque to light. He found far more than he
had sought, but it was some time before the evidently complex nature
of the spontaneously emitted uranium radiation he had detected was
thoroughly understood ; not, indeed, till after the discovery of that
superlatively radio-active element so aptly named radium. It was
then seen that part of the radiation can be bent out of its course by a
strong magnetic field in precisely the same manner as cathode rays
can be bent aside. This part forms the /3-rays. Later on it was found
possible in the case of radium, if the magnetic field was sufficiently
intense, to deflect slightly a considerable portion of the remaining
radiation in the opposite direction. This portion constitutes the
a-rays. The 7-rays are, like the Rontgen rays, unaffected by mag-
netism. Like the Rontgen rays also, they traverse a prism without
refraction. Very little is known about them because of their exceeding
penetrativeness ; on which account it is possible that a great proportion
of this radiation escapes detection altogether, for rays which traverse
substances without any check can produce no perceptible effects at all.

The photographs obtained by making the radiations permanently
record their own path furnish valuable data for the mathematician

1904 INVISIBLE RADIATIONS 91

and for the experimentalist. Thus it is clearly seen that, under the
influence of magnetism, the /3-rays describe circles of varying radius ;
whence it follows that they vary in velocity. It is also clearly seen
that the yS- and 7-rays are perfectly distinct, for there is marked dis-
continuity between the least deflected /9-rays and the totally unde-
flected 7-rays. Furthermore, the photographs show that it is the
7-rays and the least deflected yQ-rays which most easily penetrate
obstacles placed in their path ; but where /3- or 7-rays are checked by
the substances they traverse, they give rise to secondary rays
emanating from those substances — rays not due to reflection or
diffusion, but analogous rather to phosphorescence, for they have not
precisely the same properties as the rays which call them forth. The
a -rays cannot pass through obstacles, and are totally absorbed even
by air at a very short distance from their source.

The chief difference between positive and negative radiation,
wheresoever found, is this. Negative radiation is formed of those
inconceivably minute particles called electrons, which some physicists
believe may consist entirely of electricity ; while positive radiation is
formed of particles which seem to be of the order of atoms, and which,
hence, are, when compared with electrons, of enormous size and mass.
The velocity of the radiations varies greatly. In the cathode rays it
is one-fifth that of light ; in the /3-rays of radium the highest value
is about one-third that of light. ' Slow ' negative rays, such as some
of those which can be drawn out of metal by the agency of the light
of the electric arc, or other source rich in ultra-violet rays, have a
velocity which is about a hundredth that of light. It is interesting to
note that the feeble magnetism of the earth suffices to curve the slower
radiations. The apparent convergence of the rays of an aurora
borealis is an optical effect believed to be due to this cause. Positive
radiation is more difficult to study, and little is known about it yet.
The a-rays of radium have a velocity which is a twentieth that of light.
In uranium radiation there seem to be no a-rays ; but since wherever
electricity of one sign is made manifest an equal quantity of electricity
of the opposite sign is liberated somewhere, the probability is that in
this and in other cases where we perceive negative radiation alone, the
positive charge is left on atoms which remain in the substance itself.

The effect which is by far the most sensitive test of the existence
of these invisible radiations, and which is, moreover, the only effect
capable of quantitative measurement, is that of rendering air conduc-
tive to electricity. In the phraseology of that theory which is at
present held to be the best means of co-ordinating the facts, the radia-
tions ionise the air. According to this theory, the impact of the radia-
tions causes a certain atomic dislocation in some of the particles of
the air, so that these particles are separated into those positive and
negative parts which, in all matter, neutralise one another when united
— parts similar to those of which the charged radiations themselves are

92 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

composed. It is the movement of these parts under the influence of
electric forces which constitutes the current. Independently of any
theory, we know as experimentally proved facts that the change in
the air which makes it conductive is accompanied by the formation
of centres upon which water-vapour can condense, for air which was
dust free and perfectly clear may become cloudy after ionisation;
that these centres are positively and negatively charged, for they
can be drawn away by an electric field ; that their velocity is not high,
for they can be blown out of their course by even a feeble current of
air ; and that the removal of these ' ions ' destroys the conductibility
of the air. Hence it is a legitimate inference, and independent of any
hypothesis as to their nature, that the conductibility is due to the
ions. It is the more necessary to distinguish between proved facts,
which are an abiding possession, and the more or less ephemeral
theories based upon those facts, because physicists now look upon
theories of any kind as little else but convenient tools. ' The merit of
a theory,' it has been recently said, ' consists not in being true, for
no theories are true, but in being fertile ' — that is to say, in being
not only a satisfactory and self-consistent representation of the
totality of the facts, so far as we know them, but also in suggesting
by the images used in which direction to seek for further knowledge.
When, as is the case with the theory of ions, calculations made on
the suppositions involved in the pictorial representation lead to far-
reaching conclusions, which have been verified when put to the test of
experiment and observation, then the theory is certainly fertile ; and
a theory can only be fertile, one would imagine, in virtue of bearing,
in however remote a degree, some resemblance to the truth.

By the test of ionisation it would appear from the researches of
several physicists that radio-activity is, in a feeble degree, a property
of very many substances, and, indeed, perhaps of all.

An exceedingly interesting series of observations made by the
German physicists Elster and Geitel has proved the universality of
radio-activity from another point of view. About ten years ago,
while studying atmospheric electricity, they found that even in the
driest air, and in spite of all precautions, it was not possible to keep
an instrument charged for any length of time without some loss. As
it was necessary for their observations that they should be able to
have entire confidence in their tools, they tested their instruments by
leaving them charged for some time in vacua. There being then no
loss of charge, there was evidently no leakage through insufficient
insulation of the supports in the instruments themselves, and the loss
could only be due to a certain slight conductibility of atmospheric
air, for which they could not account. It was known that air can be
ionised by ultra-violet light, and they were inclined at first to attribute
the conductibility to ionisation of the atmosphere by ultra-violet sun-
light. But when, in order to test this supposition, they conducted

1904 INVISIBLE RADIATIONS 93

experiments in the air of caves and cellars, they found that the con-
ductibility, instead of being less than in air exposed to sunlight, was,
on the contrary, very much greater. While they were still searching
for the cause of the ionisation, which was evidently not due to sun-
light— and, indeed, the rays which cause ionisation are largely absorbed
in the upper regions of the atmosphere — progress was being made in
the study of radio-activity. Almost simultaneously, hi 1899, Ruther-
ford discovered with compounds of thorium, and Curie with com-
pounds of radium, that, in addition to the radiations, these elements
emit something else. This something else, to which Rutherford gave
the name emanation, cannot be weighed, gives no clearly distinctive
lines when examined spectroscopically, has none of the mechanical
properties of a gas, does not act chemically in any way we can detect,
and, indeed, yields, so to speak, no evidence whatever for its exist-
ence, save that where it passes or where it settles, there it gives rise
to radio-activity. Any substance whatever which is left for some
time in the vicinity of the radio-active salt becomes itself temporarily
radio-active. The emanation diffuses throughout an enclosed space
as a gas would diffuse, only, apparently, it passes through very narrow
openings with more ease ; it is checked by everything that checks a
gas ; it can, like a gas, be pumped or blown out of a vessel ; it dis-
appears at the temperature of liquid air, and reappears when the
temperature is raised ; its absence or presence being in every case
manifested by the absence or presence of the induced radio-activity.
This induced radio-activity can be measured in the usual way —
namely, by the extent to which it renders air conductive ; and it
has been found that when radium emanation is left in a closed vessel
without the radium salt which has given rise to it, this definite amount,
whatever it may be, diminishes by half in four days. If, however,
the vessel be open to the air, then the emanation diminishes by half
in twenty-eight minutes. With actinium, which is very active
thorium, the emanation diminishes by half in a closed vessel in three
seconds. Constants of time such as these may serve to determine
the nature of a radio-active substance, when it is found in quantities
too small for any chemical test to be of the slightest avail.

The connection between the emanation and the radiations is as
yet a matter for more or less plausible conjecture. The emanation
disappears — that is to say, it becomes lost to our means of detection —
and in disappearing it gives rise to radiations. Becquerel considers
it best to look upon the emanation as the primary phenomenon, and
to suppose that the radiations are always due to the break-up of
emanation, whether that emanation be entangled, so to speak, in the
pores of the substance itself, or whether it has diffused away from
the substance and settled elsewhere. There is, however, no evidence
for this explanation or for any other.

What we do know for certain is that the emanation is attracted by

94 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

negatively charged metal, and that it can thus be collected and con-
centrated. After this discovery, which was made as soon as the
emanation itself was detected, Elster and Geitel conducted experi-
ments to determine whether the ionisation of the atmosphere might
be due to radio-activity. They fixed a cylinder, formed of thirty
metres of wire, in the open air, and kept it negatively charged to a
high potential. They found that if they rubbed the wire every few
hours with a tiny bit of leather steeped in ammonia or in hydrochloric
acid, the leather became radio-active, and that when they burnt the
leather the ash was radio-active. By thus concentrating on a small
surface the emanation collected on the whole cylinder during many
hours, they were able to obtain, not only the ionisation effect, but
also the photographic effect, for which much stronger radio-activity
is required. It soon became evident that the atmosphere every-
where and always contains radio-active emanation, more or less, and
the next question was : Whence does that emanation arise ? Care-
fully conducted experiments proved that it is not due to any con-
stituent of the air itself ; it arises from the earth. Air taken from the
soil may contain so much emanation that, if properly concentrated, it
will even yield the phosphorescent effect. Water which has passed
through the earth contains emanation in solution. This is especially
the case with mineral waters, and it has been suggested that the
curative properties may, in certain cases, be partly due to the radio-
activity ; if so, that would explain the puzzling fact that some waters lose
their virtue when removed from their source, since, however carefully the
vessel was closed, the emanation would nevertheless disappear. Whence
this universally diffused emanation arises is not yet known ; researches
to determine the substances which produce it are being carried on now.
The amount of matter in question is so infinitesimal that experi-
menters have not yet been able to detect any loss of weight in their
radio-active salts to account for the unceasingly emitted emanation.
This is, however, not so strange as it may sound at first, for it is paral-
leled by facts with which we are perfectly familiar. Scent, which is on
good grounds believed to be a material emanation, is not necessarily
accompanied by loss of weight, not even when it is as strongly marked
as in the case of musk. The fact is that where our senses do give us
direct evidence they may be far more sensitive than any indirect
means we can devise. Thus we know of the existence of a
multitude of emanations by no other test than our sense of smell.
Where, on the other hand, our senses fail us, there we may remain
in total ignorance until we learn in some indirect way. The most
striking example of this self-evident, though too often forgotten, fact
is furnished by electricity. We are in the position as regards electricity
of a deaf man, who only knows that there is sound when he sees motion
or feels vibration ; for it is only indirectly that we can perceive it,
seeing that we lack an electric sense. Yet, step by step, by indirect

1904 INVISIBLE BADIATIONS 95

means, we have learnt that electricity is the most universal of agents,
and now we are learning, also by indirect means, of the existence in
nature of hitherto unsuspected subtle emanations, electrically charged
radiations, and radiations to which no substance is opaque.

The most plausible hypothesis respecting the radiations of the
X-rays type is probably that which was formulated by Stokes — namely,
that they are ethereal vibrations which differ from light as noise
differs from music ; that is to say, that they do not belong to that
series of rays produced by continuous rhythmic vibrations, which
includes light, radiant heat, and the electro-magnetic waves which
are utilised in wireless telegraphy, but that they are irregular pulses
in the ether. In the case of the Rontgen rays, the pulses would be
produced by the impact of the cathode rays upon the surfaces which
check them ; in the case of the 7-rays, by the ethereal commotion
caused by the emission of the charged radiations. In 1902, Blondlot
noticed that if Rontgen rays fell upon a small electric spark they
somewhat increased the brightness of that spark, and he thought to
utilise this effect in an elaborately devised experiment for obtaining
the velocity of the Rontgen rays. The velocity he found by this
means was equal to that of light, and this seemed an important step
towards knowledge of their nature. As he proceeded in his experi-
mental work, however, he noticed that the rays which affect the
spark were polarised, and that these polarised rays could be refracted
by passing them through crystals. But it is abundantly evident that
X-rays cannot be refracted, and therefore Blondlot perceived that
there must be some mistake in the conclusions at which he had arrived.
A simple test experiment made the matter perfectly clear. He inter-
posed a prism of aluminium between the source of the X-rays and the
spark, by the appearance of which he had thought to detect their
influence, choosing aluminium because it is a substance which is
transparent to X-rays and opaque to visible light. The X-rays
passed undeviated through the prism, and produced no effect what-
ever on the spark. When, however, the spark was shifted into a
position in which it was struck by rays which were deviated by the
prism, then the former effect was perceived. Thus Blondlot saw that
he had not succeeded in measuring the velocity of the Rontgen rays,
but that he had discovered, mixed with them, some extremely
penetrating rays which had the physical properties of ordinary light.

Further study has made him feel certain that these N-rays, as he
calls them, do belong to the same category as light. They produce
none of those photographic or phosphorescent effects which have
so greatly aided the study of the Becquerel rays, and the only charac-
teristic by which they can be recognised is that they cause a change
in the luminosity of pre-existent phosphorescence, or of any feeble
light or feebly illuminated surface — a change which it requires some
practice to be able to appreciate, and which is not visible to every
observer even then. On this account Blondlot's conclusions are not

96 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

yet universally accepted. One objective proof of the correctness of
his observations has, however, been furnished. If a small electric
spark is caused to produce a photograph of itself — all necessary pre-
cautions being taken to avoid error — the difference that it makes in
the photographic appearance of the spark, whether it is being acted
upon by N-rays or not, is marked and unmistakable.

Blondlot has measured the wave-length of the N-rays by methods
similar to those employed for ordinary light. As a source of the
rays he uses a Nernst lamp, enclosed in a dark lantern, with a window
of aluminium, thus effectually cutting off all luminous rays. In
front of the window there is a screen, formed of layers of aluminium
and black paper, to cut off all the heat rays which proceed from the
metal. This precaution is especially necessary in all these experi-
ments, seeing that phosphorescence is so extremely sensitive to heat.
Since N-rays do not pass through water, if it is pure — though they do
pass through salt water, as well as through aluminium, wood, and
many other substances — a screen of wet cardboard in which there is
a narrow slit permits of the isolation of a beam, which can be focussed
and dispersed by lenses and prisms of aluminium. Like the visible
rays, the N-rays are heterogeneous ; the wave-lengths that have been
measured vary, but they are all at least a hundred times smaller
than that of the furthest ultra-violet rays that had been hitherto
known — rays which do not reach us from the sun at all, since they are
entirely absorbed by the atmosphere, and which, when obtained from
the electric light, must be measured in vacuo, for a very little air
is as opaque to them as if the air were lead. Yet the N-rays, which
lie so very much further beyond the violet end of the spectrum, are
largely contained in sunlight, thus proving that they lie outside the
limit of the radiations which the air cuts off. N-rays are absorbed
by many substances, and then afterwards emitted ; whether changed
or not in character we cannot yet tell, but in any case there is here a
close and important analogy with phosphorescence.

The point, however, which is perhaps of the most general interest
with respect to these researches is this. There seems to be clear
evidence already that there are other radiations besides those the
wave-length of which has been determined, which are being discovered
by means of this new test. Some of these may belong to a totally
different part of the long series of ethereal vibrations which reach us
from the sun, while others may be of an entirely different order. For
the present all the radiations, which had not hitherto been detected,
and which produce the same effects as the rays which Blondlot noticed
at first, are grouped together as N-rays ; but there are physicists who
believe that further study will enable important distinctions to be
made, and that with respect to this whole subject of invisible
radiation, in the widest acceptation of that term, we are only on the
threshold of discovery.

ANTONIA ZIMMEBN.

1904

MEDICATED AIR

A SUGGESTION

WE cannot change our climate. Is it not possible to greatly ameliorate
the part it plays in two propositions of grave national importance ?
These are —

(1) That the climate of these islands is in the main favourable to
the development of certain diseases widely prevalent within its range,
and adding great numbers to our yearly death-roll.

(2) That the atmospheric conditions of the life of the poor in
London and other great cities are not, and probably never will be,
favourable to the healthy development of the race.

As air is the first of our vital needs, so what may be called
* atmospheric hygiene ' is the first force by which both these dangers
should be met. It has been the last to attract the attention of the
public or to engage the resources of science. It is true that public
faith, so long fastened on the medicine bottle, has been in some
measure diverted to Open Air as a curative formula ; and that
sanitary science, not confined to drains, to food, and to water, has
included in its purview questions of ventilation and cubic air space
per individual. It is with the first subject, which in many of its
aspects includes the second, that this article is mainly concerned.

The gospel of Open Air has been widely preached, and has made
many converts ; large funds have been generously provided for putting
the doctrine into practice, and an ample measure of success has
already been achieved. Do not these facts justify the hope that
when the real nature of the question at issue is understood, and
its vast potentialities are revealed by closer examination, neither
science nor philanthropy will be satisfied to stop at the threshold of
progress ?

Quantity has been the chief guide hitherto in the application of
air, whether to disease or to overcrowded habitations. But the
quality of the air, its condition, its properties, its intricate composition ;
the bearing of these on the special requirements of different com-
plaints ; the suggested possibility of assimilating the air of our climate
to that of other climates known to be beneficial to particular diseases, so
converting it into a curative agent before it is breathed by the patient —

VOL. LVI— No. 329 97 H

98 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

these offer a vast field of investigation, and perhaps a rich harvest of
relief to a multitude of sufferers. Few and shallow as yet are the
furrows which science and medicine, working hand in hand, have
driven in that great field. In another country a munificent endow-
ment has been given by a patriotic citizen for a systematic investiga-
tion of the nature and treatment of consumption.1 But consumption
is only one of the diseases which come within the scope of treated air.
Already, happily, the first experiment in this greater subject has
been tried, the first results achieved and demonstrated, in England —
in London. If we stand still, and the organised investigations of
American science and medicine should in the end point to this as the
true line of progress, what will then remain to be said of us here in
England ? That, shutting our eyes to the light, we were content to
lag behind, to follow only where others led the way, and to leave the
credit of a great achievement to a more enterprising and more generous
nation.

The necessity of the case arises from two causes, the one natural,
the other artificial but permanent ; for the conditions of our popula-
tion as to residence are not less fixed than those of our climate.

Our climate is not all bad. It is a question whether on the whole any
other could have been of greater advantage. We are still surprised at
times at its behaviour, as though not yet perfectly familiar with it. But
as a fact we are acclimatised, not perhaps in the sense of our trees and
vegetation, or of some extinct race of aborigines for whom the
climate was made and who were made for the climate. We are not
grown in it as a race ; but after some centuries of habitation we have
grown to it. The asperities of the British climate did not drive our
imperial conquerors from their cherished Ultima Thule ; and succes-
sive races of invaders have held it dear. Indeed, they have
thriven and prospered, enduring climatic hardship to a good purpose,
it would seem. Some enthusiasts hold that it is the best of
climates. It has promoted open-air life and sport; and it was in
England that the Open Air treatment was first preached by Bodington,
and in Ireland by MacCormac, long before the crusade against con-
sumption. Undeniably it has kept us a strong race. ' Physical
deterioration,' which is under investigation by a Royal Commission,
is really due not to the operation of climatic influences, but to
their partial suspension by artificial conditions of life. Nor is our
climate devoid of moral effect in the formation of the national quality
of patience. ' Temperate,' in a technical sense, its merciless varia-
bility is a mental as well as physical discipline. It is a ' universal
exerciser ' not only for the body but the mind, preparing us to sur-

1 The Henry Phipps Institute, at Philadelphia ; an admirable instance of the
endowment of a fully-equipped institute for the progressive study of the prevention
and cure of a single disease, until that disease shall be rendered preventable and
curable.

1904 MEDICATED AIR 99

mount obstacles and endure disappointments which we cannot foresee,
and stimulating us_like the rigid alternations of the hot and cold
water douche.

It is not, however, with the virtues but the shortcomings of our
climate that we are now concerned. Good as it is for health, it is also
good for the prevalence and development of some of our diseases — so
good, in fact, that we may classify them for the present purpose as
climatic diseases. We have got rid of ague ; not, it is significant to
note, by treating the complaint, but by treating its cause. Land
drainage would banish ague even from the swamps of Africa. But
consumption, with its insidious approach, its long delay, its fatal end ;
rheumatism, reading heart disease for so many ; kidney disease, in its
chronic form ; bronchial diseases, lightly termed ' affections ' ; gout,
with its evil connections — for all these the best cure is climate of
another kind.

Thousands of fortunate people pursue that cure, on the Riviera,
at Davos, in Colorado, Mexico, and many other places too numerous
to mention, where special virtues have been found in the climate.
Yet there remain hundreds of thousands, the vast majority of the
sufferers, whose means do not and never will enable them to leave
this country, who are thrown back ceaselessly on its climatic dis-
advantages, and compelled to carry on a long and often hopeless
struggle with a natural and native foe. Their helplessness appeals
to us, and should not appeal in vain if, as we believe, a great
measure of emancipation is consistent with economic conditions that
cannot be altered.

It is the story of Mahomet and the mountain. If the patient
cannot visit other climates, the air of other climates should be brought
to the patient. The elemental forces in the air of those climates
which make for cure exist in part in ours, but Nature has made them
subordinate to other and less favourable forces ; science may suppress
these and bring forward those. If they do not exist, science may
some day produce them. Then to some extent in any building,
however large, more completely in an enclosed cubic space, the patient
would be enabled to breathe air which by scientific treatment had
been assimilated in its essential properties to the air of health resorts
thousands of miles distant from England.

This proposition, startling as it may sound, is already passing out
of the stage of theory. At an institution 2 known for its successful
treatment of wounds, ulcers, and lupus by oxygen and ozone,
a significant example has been given by the erection of enclosed
cubicles, in which consumptive patients breathe treated air, and
are subjected to conditions analogous to those which cure consump-
tion at places like Davos or Tenerife. We learn that encouraging

2 The Oxygen Hospital, Fitzroy Square, under the patronage of H.E.H. Princess
Louise, Duohess of Argyll.

H 2

100 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY July

results have been observed, such as the reduction of temperature,
the disappearance of tubercle bacilli, the relief of cough, and the
increase of weight. This is mentioned as an illustration, and because
it is only fair not to overlook any credit attaching to a first experi-
ment. Its originator would probably be the last to claim that in its
present stage it contains more than the germ of a great movement.

Let us examine very briefly the possibilities that lie within the
range of a more complete and organised development of this great
reserve of our natural resources. The cure of consumption is among
the hardest of our tasks, and more than we could venture to hope for
as a result of any one system of treatment. But it is less difficult
to realise the protection that might be afforded against rheumatism,
heart disease, and kidney disease by mitigating certain properties in
the atmosphere that surrounds the patient. If treated air should
prove, with the co-operation of other hygienic factors, of great value in
these and other ailments, it would solve the economic or social difficulty
inseparable from a population like ours, of which only a small per-
centage of sufferers can visit other climates. It would meet another
difficulty which attends the Open Air treatment at home. It is
applicable to London and other great towns, where the great majority
of the sick cannot, for want of means, be sent to open air sanatoria in
the country. As a form of treatment it could find its domicile in
every town hospital. It would not remove the patient from the
centre of science and medicine, but would place the best resources
of these at his disposal, and enrich and develop them by the oppor-
tunities afforded for observation and study.

Mention has already been made of the variety of diseases, widely
prevalent in this country, which might be brought within the range
of a systematic investigation of the possibilities of treated air. When
we consider how numerous and diverse those possibilities are, we are
justified in saying that at present little is known and little has been
done in this direction, and in asking if we can calmly contemplate a
continuance of our inactivity and ignorance. We have purified
water ; distilled, aerated, and medicated it. We use it for purposes
of cure in every variety that nature can provide or science can
apply. What has been done for air, beyond mechanical ventilation,
modifying or increasing the abundance of its supply without any
improvement in its quality ? Compressed air and rarefied air have
been used. Establishments exist for the inhalation of steam and
medicinal vapours. Oxygen, too, has been summoned to the aid of
the sick. But these have been casual expedients of the nature of
' sittings.' Nowhere, save in the instance already mentioned, have
the means been provided of continuous application by enabling the
patient to live for a given time in treated air.

The main constituents and the main qualities of air are well known.
Its finer constituents and qualities are only now gaining recognition.

1904 MEDICATED A IB 101

The temperature, the moisture, and the pressure of the atmosphere have
already been submitted to control ; and it might even now be possible
to provide within a limited cubic space a succession of artificial atmo-
spheres differing in their value for purposes of treatment. But the
finer characters of natural climates — for instance, their tonic or their
relaxing quality — are not wholly to be explained on so simple a basis.
As the proportion of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid is known
to show hardly any local variations, these subtle climatic properties
possibly depend upon the more variable influence of light, of elec-
tricity, of magnetism, and of the latest of our additions to the attri-
butes of air, radio-activity. The recent observations made in Switzer-
land that the air at a moderate altitude is several times more radio-
active than in the valley favour the hope that a future elucidation of
the mysteries of climate may result from a study of the physical
agents already known to us, and of others yet to be discovered.

Is it not clear from this brief survey that the field of investiga-
tion before us is vast and varied, and that the treatment of air may
become at least as important as the Open Air treatment ? The two
subjects are closely connected, and it is a question whether
the Open Air treatment, in this country at least, can have the fair
trial its great possibilities demand, without being complemented by
an efficient control of the condition of the air itself. Extremes of cold
or heat, of damp or dryness, mists and fogs, constant changes of wind,
cannot be regarded as a helpful part of the treatment, and need to be
eliminated. The relative quality of local climates is another important
consideration. Above all, it must not be forgotten that the suitability
of the climate is an individual question. It is well known that even
Davos does not suit all cases of consumption, and the best of health
resorts would be the better for facilities for modifying its local atmo-
sphere to meet individual indications.

No inquiry into this matter can fail to open up an important
question affecting the construction both of our sanatoria and our
town hospitals. In the former provision for suitable air is not a care
of the future, but of the present. Sanatoria must live up to their
name. With cure as their object they must follow every advance,
if they cannot lead it, and provide for each condition the best air that
science can produce. Have they been planned with this progressive
end in view ?

The suitability of our older hospitals for the Open Air method,
including all the improvements in it which are within sight, is another
anxious matter. From this aspect alone, irrespective of any new
departure which further discoveries may at any time force upon us, there
is a certain responsibility in planning monumental hospitals of a dura-
bility ' worthy of the Romans ' instead of lighter buildings not intended
to survive so long their inevitable obsolescence. Within the near
future our ideas as to the internal distribution of space and of wards

102 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

may undergo modification in connection with the necessity for ex-
tending an improved application of the Open Air principle, and of
supplying not damaging but healing air. Have our hospitals been
designed to include this purpose ?

To elucidate all these problems and satisfy their requirements,
prolonged and systematic investigation and patient observations
are necessary. The result may bring us to the strange conclusion
that after all the best treatment for our climatic diseases is the only
one possible to the vast majority of those who suffer from them, to
stay at home ; and the best sanatorium one where every facility for
aerotherapy may in the future be obtainable.

If, by sufficient study, we could ultimately learn to treat the air
so as to fairly reproduce for practical purposes of treatment the
virtues of various climates, a great advance would have been made.
And, besides imitating climates artificially, we might in the future be
able to create climates to suit the individual requirement just as we
regulate the dose of medicine or of electricity, by varying the supply
of the normal constituents and qualities of air and by adding bene-
ficial agents. To analyse the factors in the air of a climate might
enable us to compound it as we compound a chemical body. That
this treatment of the atmosphere is a practical possibility is becoming
known to men of science ; that it is worth doing will be obvious to
physicians ; that it is being tried has already been shown. How soon
it shall be tried on an adequate scale is a question for the nation.
The range of investigation which in the future is open to us in this
direction is boundless.

It remains to suggest and, not without hesitation, to formulate a
scheme by which the conclusions arrived at might be embodied in a
great national enterprise.

It is strange that in an age illuminated by its discoveries pure
science has as yet done so little for health. Though we may not be
so enthusiastic as Metchnikofi about prolonging life, still we may
hope for some improvement if we know how to earn it. Hitherto
medicine has gleaned rather than reaped in the fields of science,
or has caught here and there a casual seed which was to fructify
under its own care. There is an illimitable harvest, if only men of
pure science are secured as practical associates in our work. They
are the explorers fully equipped. Agents of progress themselves,
their collaboration with its other agents should be a direct one.
A new organisation is needed, in which pure science should be given
the place it alone can fill. This should include scientific men in
working combination with the men who have practical experience in
the actual treatment of disease. To assist the cure of the sick and
suffering might then become a welcome function of the man of
science, as it is the professional duty of the medical man.

The practical requisites for such a scheme would be —

1904 MEDICATED AIR 103

1. A Hospital for the treatment of disease with the help of atmo-
spheric as well as other agents ; not necessarily a very large or costly
hospital, for special construction and equipment would be more
important than size. A hospital is the only place where clinical and
therapeutical methods can be applied with systematic thoroughness,
so that the results can be identified with the factors of treatment,
and the knowledge thus gained diffused far and wide with authority.

2. An Institute for the study of atmospheric hygiene in relation
to (a) the treatment of disease, (&) the improvement of the health and
strength of the healthy. The institute would be worked in connection
with the hospital, and would represent on a large scale the functions
of the clinical and pathological laboratories attached to an ordinary
hospital-. The staff of the institute might consist of (a) a consulta-
tive board, including, in addition to physicians and surgeons, men
eminent in each branch of science : physicists, chemists, physiolo-
gists, electricians, radiographers, architects, engineers, and others ;
(&) a smaller group of experts to collaborate with the medical staff.

Need we ask what would be gained by such a combination ? All
problems of treatment involving chemistry or physics would be
studied and worked out in their various aspects, including the practical
side of finance, by the highest authorities of the institute, and, if
judged practicable, their final elaboration carried out by the joint
scientific and medical staff of the hospital. In this way, for the first
time, pure science would be handling the practical work of healing.

A rSsume of these ideas, which are probably novel to most, may be
of service to the reader.

No new cure for consumption or for any other diseases is contained
in these pages. Their object is to reveal the extent to which our
knowledge and our use of curative agencies available in a promising
direction have been unnecessarily delayed.

Open Air, the greatest of all modern advances in the treatment of
consumption, can never be superseded ; it only needs to be improved
and, if necessary, supplemented. Its application extends far beyond
consumption. But our open air does not always suit our ehief
ailments so well as open air elsewhere at selected stations.

The advantage of climate as a protection or as a cure should not
remain the exclusive privilege of the few ; some equivalent at least
should be provided for the many.

This national duty is specially a London duty, for in London,
with its millions of breathers of used-up air and with its miles of
contaminated atmosphere, it is combined with another national duty
— that of stopping the deterioration of the race, and of providing for
the healthy development of the young. This necessarily involves
as a first essential a progressive study how to improve the air we
breathe in the sick-room, in the sleeping- room, in the school-room,
and in the workshop.

104 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY July

The difficult task of producing special atmospheres for the pre-
vention or relief of some of our climatic diseases, for which special
climates are distinctly beneficial, is beyond the unaided powers of
medical art. It could not be successfully attempted without a
systematic collaboration between the representatives of pure science
and practical engineering and those of medicine. This calls for an
institute for the experimental study of atmospheric hygiene in all its
aspects, combined with a hospital for practical observation and treat-
ment, not limited to any one system, but capable of readjustment to
every future advance. Under such a combination problems relating
to the construction and plant of hospitals and sanatoria, as well as
those of medical treatment, which have not hitherto been submitted
conjointly to comparative study, would be continuously worked at,
and the results made available for all charitable institutions through-
out the land.

Labour and delay are inseparable from the attainment of practical
results in the treatment of disease, and still more in connection with
atmospheric hygiene as relating to the ventilation of houses and towns.
This twofold necessity strengthens the claim for prompt action. For
solid clinical results, however, we may not have to wait so long. A
hospital duly equipped would from the first be fulfilling an urgent work of
relief, on those less complicated lines which have already been found
successful, and any other simple lines to come. To generous supporters
of the scheme this would be an immediate reward. It would encourage
and sustain those engaged in the weary work of research, and provide
the first fruits of that matured and systematic co-operation between
medicine and science for which this article is an earnest appeal.

WILLIAM EWART.

1904

THE POLITICAL WOMAN IN AUSTRALIA

UNDER the laws of most countries women possess no legal rights, no
political freedom ; they do enjoy certain privileges, but of these they
may be deprived at any moment by the same power that granted
them — the ballot is the only weapon with which to secure and retain
legal and political rights. * Advance Australia ' is our national motto,
and we Australian women have good reason to glory in the advance
of our country, which, in granting women absolute political equality
with men, has reached a position unique in the world's history. Philo-
sophers, poets, and statesmen have rhapsodised about the beauty
and the blessing of representative government, but few have pictured
women as co-partners in such a form of government. America was
the birthplace of modern democracy, but America has never dreamt
in its philosophy of applying the fundamental principles of the Declara-
tion of Independence to American women. No, it has been left to
the newest of nations to admit that as ' men are created equal . . .
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ... to secure
these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed,' so shall women be endowed with
the rights that are considered the just due of sane, law-abiding,
naturalised men.

The Australian constitution has no sex limitations whatever ;
women vote on equal terms with men, they are eligible for member-
ship in our National Parliament, they may even ascend to the dignity
of office. That the constitution establishes the principle of no sex in
politics is an unparalleled triumph for the woman suffrage party,
which does not forget to give honour where honour is due, to the men
of Australia, who have grown so far in democratic sentiment that they
can tolerate the idea of living with political equals, an idea up to
which John Stuart Mill said the men of his time were not educated.

It says a great deal for the educative value of the vote that the
prejudice against women entering Parliament is more pronounced
amongst women than it is amongst men. It took about twenty years
to educate the women of Australia up to the point of asking for the
franchise, and they are going to stick there for some time before they
go any further. Nothing dies so hard as prejudice, and it is prejudice

105

106 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

alone that blinds them to the fact that it is necessary and desirable
to have women in Parliament. The vote in itself is a powerful weapon
for good, but men, as the result of years of experience, have discovered
that direct parliamentary representation is essential if full effect is
to be given to the vote : they know that the entrance of women into
Parliament is the natural and logical outcome of the minor reform ;
therefore, they do not view with such horror, as do many women,
the prospect of seeing women within the sacred precincts of Parlia-
ment. Indeed, it is because the sacredness of Parliament is such a
myth that so many public-spirited men desire to see women there.
They well know the limitations of their own sex. It always has been
the ' privilege ' of woman to tidy up after man. Man seems to be
constitutionally unable to keep things tidy. Take the daily round,
the common task — he leaves the bathroom in a state of flood, his
dressing-room a howling wilderness of masculine paraphernalia, his
office a chaos of ink and papers ; the wonder is he ' gets there ' so well
as he does. Untidy at home, untidy in business, so is he untidy in
the nation ; he does his best, but as he does not understand the first
principles of household management, he gets the national household
into a terrible state of muddle. He is so busy looking after the big
things, that he forgets all about the little things that make the big
things a success, instead of a failure. And so the women have to
come along and help to evolve order out of chaos ; but they suffer no
illusions as to the magnitude of their task. The work of tidying
up public affairs is not the work of a day, nor of a generation ; it is
primarily a matter of slow education, which must begin in the home
and be founded on an ethical basis. Some think that, if women do
their duty in their homes, nothing further is required, no public duty
should be expected of them ; but women cannot train their sons and
daughters in the varied, complex, and sacred duties of citizenship
unless they possess a first-hand knowledge of what citizenship means.
Women are not made safe advisers of their children by being kept
ignorant of all that citizenship involves. Public spirit is a great
need of the age. We wonder why public affairs are so badly managed ;
it is partly because those who conduct them have been trained by
women who had no conception of public duty, who knew not the
meaning of public spirit, who, consequently, could not be expected
to equip their sons properly for the public arena. Give women the
vote and you prepare the way for a new order of things ; by giving
women political power you give them an incentive to study, or at
least to interest themselves in public questions, and the effect of their
enlarged interests will be beneficial both to home and State.

The political incentive is now the possession of the women of
Australia, and its influence was a potent factor in the recent Federal
elections. The women of South Australia and West Australia have
had the suffrage for some years, so that they are accustomed to voting,

1904 THE POLITICAL WOMAN IN AUSTRALIA 107

but to the women of the other States the whole business was new ;
nevertheless, they voted in as large numbers proportionally as the
men in a majority of the constituencies, while in some they cast a
heavier vote than the men. The total vote was only 52 per cent, of
the voting strength, the low percentage being due to the fact that the
people as a body have not yet grasped the Federal idea. Federation
has not completely scotched provincialism in politics, though it is
fast doing so, if for no other reason than the enormous cost of govern-
ment in this country. The people are beginning to realise that we
are paying the political piper heavily — fourteen Houses of Parliament
and seven viceroyalties for four millions of people ! It is too big an
order, and common sense, as well as the state of our finances, demands
that we should simplify our legislative machinery. It is right here,
as the Americans say, that the women's influence will tell. During
the election campaign, it was most evident that a very large section
of the women favoured those candidates who urged economy in public
expenditure. Individual women, with no idea of the value of money,
may be extravagant, but most women are compelled by circumstances
to be economical and have a horror of wasteful expenditure. There-
fore the growing demand for less expensive legislative machinery will
find devoted adherents amongst the women voters. As a candidate
at the recent elections, I attribute to a great degree the large measure
of support I received to my strong advocacy of economy in administra-
tion (by the abolition of the State Parliaments, dividing the work
now done by them between the Federal Parliament and the Municipal
councils), and the cessation of borrowing except for reproductive
works.

' Women will vote as their menfolk tell them,' was an argument of
the anti-suffrage party. The elections proved that, on the whole, the
women cast an independent vote. Of course they frequently voted
as their menfolk did, not because they allowed themselves to be
blindly led in that direction, but because their political judgment
decided it was the right way. We know that men often vote as they
are told to vote by their party, or by the particular daily paper they
make their guide, philosopher, and friend. Many did so in the Federal
elections, swallowing wholesale the selected ' ticket,' even bringing it
to the booth with them, so that they could not by any chance make
a mistake. Several returning officers, although opposed to woman
suffrage, have stated that the women were not guided by the ' ticket '
to anything like the same extent as the men were — at any rate, if they
were, they more effectively concealed the fact that they could not be
trusted to vote in the best interests of their country unless they were
told how to by an outside agent. The political parties and the daily
papers have of late years made an effort to introduce the ' ticket '
system of voting into Australian politics, in spite of the knowledge
that the system has had the most vicious results in the United States ;

108 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

but this time the ' tickets ' got fairly well broken up, an encouraging
sign to those genuinely patriotic Australians who desire to see the
people really self-governing, neither press-ridden nor party-ridden.
The ' ticket ' system is utterly repugnant to all true democratic
principles. Parliament should be elected by the people, not by one
man or any small coterie of men. The people's ' ticket ' should be
the candidates who head the poll.

If the people of Australia once clearly grasp the inevitable and
baneful results of the ' ticket ' system, if it be allowed to get the upper
hand, as it has done in the United States, then we shall have no fear
of the ultimate result. Bad as are its effects, when it is merely an
attempt at dictation, it is, if allowed to grow and become absolute,
a thousand times worse in its consequences on the national character
and the purity of public life. Australia will not be able to plead
ignorance, for there is the terrible example of what the ' ticket '
system leads to in the present condition of public life in America. No
one who has not visited America and studied the conditions on the
spot can have any idea of how corruption has eaten into every phase of
public life — a corruption which is to be clearly traced to the machine
politics and ' tickets ' of the two great parties there. The promoters
of great companies, the founders of ' trusts,' all who were anxious to
build up gigantic fortunes by the unscrupulous exploitation of their
fellow-countrymen, soon recognised the power that lay in the ' ticket '
system. They saw that, if they could capture the caucuses of the
parties, they would have the whole country in their toils, whenever
their own party was successful. They had no desire to enter the
State Legislature or Congress themselves, but they planned that the
men who were put on the ' tickets ' should be their delegates, their
creatures, who would do what they were told, and they planned
successfully. Millions of dollars are subscribed to the party funds,
newspapers are bought, bribes are scattered with lavish hands, for
these men know that they will get it all back, with compound interest,
when they can manipulate the Legislature at their will.

Thoughtful men in Australia are beginning to see the danger and
resent the tyranny of the ' ticket ' system, and an organised movement
against it will certainly be supported by the women. In fact, the
women of New South Wales and Victoria have, through the media
of their most influential political organisations, already officially
declared their hostility to the system, and at the next Federal elections
we may hope to see those who would foist ' machine ' politics upon
Australia even more decisively discomfited than they were in December.

' Women will lose the chivalrous attentions of men if they are
enfranchised ' was another argument of the distrustful anti-suffragist.
To the women who are influenced by such a prophecy of man falling
from his high estate when he finds woman his political equal, I would
say, ' My dear friends, your fears are groundless. You place a high

1904 THE POLITICAL WOMAN IN AUSTRALIA 109

value on the chivalrous attentions that men now show you. Why,
you have not the remotest idea of the vast stores of chivalry hidden
away in the inner recesses of man's nature. When you get a vote,
you will find that the chivalry of the middle ages was a poor thing
in comparison with that of the twentieth century. The chivalrous
attentions paid by candidates to women voters are most embarrassing
— Sir Walter Raleighs and De Lorges are thick as leaves in Vallom-
brosa at election time.' But, joking apart, there is positively nothing
in the argument, and those who use it have a poor opinion of men if
they really believe that as soon as women get the vote, men are going
to help themselves first at dinner, or refuse to pick up a lady's fan or
escort her to her carriage. Voting means responsibility, responsibility
means power, and power always commands respect. The Federal
election showed that those very candidates who had previously
maintained that women would lose the respect of men and be degraded
by going to the poll were the most assiduous in courting the women's
vote. They may have still the utmost contempt for the women who
would degrade themselves by mixing with men at the polling booths,
but they wrapped it up in flattery that was calculated to deceive
the very elect — and it did, in some cases.

The elections had an added interest in the appearance of four
women candidates in the field — Mrs. Martell, Mrs. Moore (New South
Wales), myself (Victoria), standing for the Senate ; and Miss Selina
Anderson (New South Wales) for the House of Representatives. All
were defeated, but the defeat was not unexpected, as we were well
aware that it would be altogether phenomenal if women were to succeed
in their first attempt to enter a National Parliament. I do not know
the salient features of the women candidates' campaign in New South
Wales, so I shall confine my observations to my own candidature.
I was nominated by the Women's Federal Political Association of
Victoria, of which I am the President, and I accepted the nomination
because I saw at once what a splendid educational value the campaign
would have. Although we possess the suffrage, there are still many
women who do not want it, do not see why they should be bothered
with it, but they only need to have the case for woman suffrage stated
to them to accept it. At present they take the views of the hostile
press and the comic papers as the truth about the political woman,
but when they hear the logic and the sweet reasonableness of woman
suffrage, when they see that those who voice it have nothing abnormal
about them, especially when they learn what their legal status is,
they soon become members of the true political faith. I knew that
I should attract very much larger audiences as a candidate than if I
were advertised to give a lecture on woman's part in the Federal
elections or some such subject. I believed that the people would
come out of curiosity, and not as single spies but in battalions, to see
the wild woman that sought to enter Parliament. They came, they

110 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

saw, I conquered : that is, my arguments did ; for no thinking, fair-
minded man or woman can hold out for five minutes against the
arguments for woman suffrage unless, indeed, they seek to deny the
right of self-government, and in these days of storm and stress one
has no time to waste in arguing with such people. The arguments
for woman suffrage are also the arguments for women entering Parlia-
ment, and thus I killed two birds with one stone — I broke down the
prejudice against woman suffrage and against women members of
Parliament. My audiences numbered from 500 to 1500 people,
according to the capacity of the hall. Two or three times the atmo-
sphere was perceptibly chilly as I took the platform, though there
was never any outward expression of hostility. However, before the
close of these meetings I can emphatically say that I had the majority
of the audiences with me on the question of a woman going into
Parliament. They may not have agreed with my political views ;
they did agree that it is necessary for women to enter Parliament in
order to voice the needs of women and children, and my meetings
always broke up with the most enthusiastic demonstrations of good
will. Frequently my friends were rather fearful as to how I should
fare at the hands of those electors who attend election meetings for
the express purpose of giving the candidate a bad time. They came,
but they treated me as men at all worthy of the name will always
treat a woman — with the utmost courtesy. Of course I was invariably
asked the question, ' Are you in favour of a tax on bachelors ? ' As
I am an unmarried woman, this question was considered the joke of
the evening ; but when I replied that ' I should be exceedingly sorry
to accept any proposal that would be likely to encourage some men to
get married,' the questioner, having an uncomfortable feeling that he
might be included amongst the undesirables, generally concluded it
was safer to get back to the domain of practical politics. Addressing
crowded, orderly, good-humoured, enthusiastic audiences is a delight
to a public speaker, and I can truthfully say that I thoroughly enjoyed
my campaign. There were eighteen candidates in the field, and, while
unsuccessful, my record of 51,497 votes, when 85,387 were sufficient to
secure election, is most gratifying. I polled more heavily than one
candidate who has been Premier of Victoria, and than another who
had been for twenty-six years a member of the State Legislature,
defeating the one by 24,327, the other by 32,436 votes— 51,000 odd
votes, in spite of the opposition of the powerful daily papers, and the
prejudice that a pioneer always has to encounter, is nothing less than
a triumph for the cause that I represent, the cause of women and
children.

That many women not pledged supporters of the Labour party
voted for some, if not all, of the Labour candidates, is strongly depre-
cated by the other rival parties. It would have been strange had
they done otherwise, considering that it is primarily due to the Labour

party that woman suffrage is such a live question in Australia. There
have up to the present been three political parties here — Free-traders,
Protectionists, Labour — we have no strongly denned Conservative
and Liberal parties. The Free-traders and Protectionists have been
so wedded to their respective fiscal theories that they have deemed
everything except the tariff of minor importance. Bent on securing
material prosperity, either by means of high tariff, or revenue tariff,
or no tariff, they forgot to be just to the women of Australia. The
Labour party in each State, whether Protectionist or Free-trade,
placed woman suffrage first ; it fought hard for it, in and out of Parlia-
ment ; consequently, owing nothing to the other political parties, we
are not likely to forget the party through which woman suffrage has
been made a question of practical politics throughout Australia,
instead of remaining, as in other countries, the four suffrage States in
America excepted, a purely academic question. I do not believe
that woman suffrage will ever become a vital question in other countries
until it is made a fighting plank of the Labour party's platform.
Recent political history teaches us that every real reform affecting
human liberties and human rights has come as the result of agitation
by the people's party, and the Labour party is essentially the people's
party. These reforms have only been advocated by one of the ortho-
dox political parties after popular enthusiasm has been aroused by
the friends of the people. Social, and industrial, and political reforms
are only won through the enthusiasm that bitter suffering creates.
Most men and women who are tolerably well circumstanced are
content to glide along the surface of life. It is those to whom hard
work brings little but anxiety and suffering, or those in whom sympathy
and imagination are well developed, who strive to bring about a
better, a juster social order. Many supporters of woman suffrage
are found amongst English Liberals and Conservatives, but as parties
they ignore the principle ; the last Trades Union Congress defeated a
woman suffrage proposition by the narrow margin of seven votes,
and that because there was a property qualification advocated instead
of ' plain ' womanhood. So it seems as if our experience will be the
experience of the women of England. They will look in vain to the
orthodox parties to fight their battles for them. The Labour party
will come forward and present a united front in favour of their enfran-
chisement ; then it will dawn upon either a Conservative or a Liberal
Government that it will be a popular political expedient to declare
for woman suffrage, and the women of Great Britain will find them-
selves the political equals of their sisters in this country.

The enfranchisement of the women of Australia has already given
an impetus to the woman suffrage movement in other countries.
Last year a suffrage amendment was submitted to the voters in the
State of New Hampshire, U.S.A., when it secured a larger measure of
support than has previously been accorded to a similar amendment in

112 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

an Eastern State. Only last week the news was cabled from England
that a woman suffrage deputation from the Women's Liberal Federa-
tion had been received by Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman and Mr.
John Morley, who, while they did not commit the party to the reform,
expressed themselves in favour of it. Similar action has previously
been taken by women's political societies in England, similar expres-
sions of approval have been voiced by leading members of the House
of Commons, but never has it been considered worth while cabling
such news to Australia, which would have been of great interest to the
woman suffrage party here. But now that we have got the suffrage,
it is held to be important to let us know that the question is also being
placed before English statesmen. ' In the gain or loss of one race all
the rest have equal claim,' and we rejoice to know that our great
suffrage gain is helping other women in their struggle for liberty.
Our Australia is a baby nation as yet, but she begins life as no other
nation has begun it, she begins with equal rights for men and women.

VIDA GOLDSTEIN.
Melbourne, February 1904.

1904

THE CAPTURE OF LHASA IN 1710

THE capture of Lhasa by the Eleuths at the beginning of the eighteenth
century has been quite overlooked in the recent voluminous literature
on the Tibet question. Perhaps the explanation is that it belongs
to the least carefully studied period of Asiatic history. The incident
deserves to be rescued from oblivion at a time when, after the lapse
of nearly two hundred years, the same task now lies before the soldiers
of the Indian Government as was successfully accomplished by the
hordes of Tse Wang Rabdan. This chieftain, whose name will be
unfamiliar to the general reader, was one of the greatest rulers that
Central Asia ever produced, defying with no inconsiderable success
Russia on one side and the famous Chinese Emperor Kanghi on the
other. It is not a little curious that our principal authority on the
subject of the campaign in Tibet that we are about to describe should
be a Russian traveller, Unkoffsky, who visited the Eleuth capital
not long after the event, and of whose narrative in Russian there is
a copy in the British Museum library.

The century which closed with the Eleuth invasion in 1710 was the
most important in the history of Tibet, for it witnessed the disappear-
ance of the old reigning dynasty, the establishment of the power of
the Dalai Lama in its place, the expulsion of the military faction, and
the arrival of the first Chinese garrison. In earlier times Tibet had
been ruled by a line of princes who had waged war and made peace
on equal terms with the Emperors of China, and the last king was
reigning during at least the first twenty years of the seventeenth
century. Father Andrada, the missionary who visited Tibet about
that time, speaks of the king's leanings towards Christianity, and
perhaps this was the final cause of the downfall of his dynasty. Until
the year 1625 the Buddhist priests had been content with their priestly
duties. They had kept to their monasteries and prayer-wheels, and
although the transmigration of the eternal spirit of Buddha through
a child was always the essential feature in the recognition and pro-
clamation of the head of the Tibetan Church, the name of the Dalai
Lama had not been heard of until the first Manchu Emperor, Chuntche,
conferred it on the High Priest of Potola in or about the year 1650.

But for some time previous to that event the priests had been

VOL. LVI — No. 329 113 I

114 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

striving to obtain the control of the civil government, and the com-
pliments and presents of the Manchu ruler, still insecurely seated on
the throne of Peking, were the recognition of their success. They had
come out of their monasteries and entered the political arena. Assum-
ing the Yellow Cap as their distinctive mark in contrast to the Red
Cap of the military party, which then enjoyed the ascendency, they
entered upon a struggle for power which covered the first fifty years
of the seventeenth century, for it commenced in the life of the last of
the kings. The Yellow Caps enjoyed the sympathy and support of
the Chinese, but it is not easy to fix precisely the value of their aid,
for China herself was passing through the throes of the last Tartar
conquest. On the other hand the Red Caps, too confident in their
strength, did not seek assistance in any direction, and when at length
the priests, pouring out of the lamaseries in thousands, bore down
on them, they ended the struggle by sheer weight of numbers, and
the surviving Red Caps had no alternative but to flee into the Hima-
layan State of Bhutan, where they still enjoy the supremacy that
they lost in Tibet. The Jongpin who visited Colonel Younghusband's
camp the other day would in all probability be the descendant of
one of these Tibetan soldiers who were expelled over 250 years ago
by the Lamas. This event happened in or a little before 1649, and
the Chinese Emperor's edict conferring on the High Priest of Potola
the title of Dalai Lama — meaning Ocean Lama, because his learning
was supposed to be equally vast — was the formal recognition of the
triumph of the Yellow Caps.

The Lamas, having expelled the regular rulers of the country,
had to provide for a new government. A civilian official with the
title of the Tipa was given charge of the civil and military adminis-
tration in the name of the Dalai Lama. The first Tipa, of whom
Duhalde wrote : — ' This Tipa wore the dress of a lama without having
to be subject to the heavy obligations of the order ' — was the man
who had chiefly aided the priests in getting rid of their military rivals.
His son in due course succeeded to his authority, and, being a man of
great ambition, he was not content with even the slight and nominal
control of the Dalai Lama. An opportunity was not long in presenting
itself. The first Dalai Lama died in 1682, and the Tipa then took
steps to prevent the discovery of his successor. In other words, he
suppressed the office of Dalai Lama, but while acting thus arbitrarily
he carefully concealed the truth of the case from the Emperor Kanghi,
the new ruler of China. The Tipa imposed so skilfully on the Chinese
ruler that he received as a reward for his loyal and useful services to
the Dalai Lama the title of Prince of Tibet — Tibet Wang— at the
hands of Kanghi. The fraud was not discovered for sixteen years.
In 1698 the facts became known at Peking, and the indignation and
astonishment of the Emperor on discovering that he had been imposed
upon found relief in a series of admirably composed letters and edicts

1904 THE CAPTURE OF LHASA IN 1710 115

which the curious reader will find in the interesting pages of the -Abbe
Duhalde.

The Tipa, having tasted the sweets of power, was determined not
to lose it without an effort, and he looked about him to see who could
render him aid. Even before he was discovered he had negotiated
a treaty with Galdan, then at the height of his power and more than
holding his own against the Chinese. It looks as if it were the discovery
of their correspondence that first made Kanghi dubious of the Tipa's
good faith. But although Galdan was not at all unwilling to profit
by the success of the Tipa, he was not in a position to render him any
definite support, and without external support it was soon made
evident that the Tipa could not maintain his position. The lamas
looked to China, and the suppression of their religious head was not
at all to their liking. When Kanghi wrote that the true Dalai Lama
must be found, they quickly fixed upon the suitable child. The Tipa
fell from his seat of power, and was promptly dealt with as an insub-
ordinate officer. No difficulty was found in getting rid of him. One
of his own lieutenants, to whom, as a reward for the deed, was given
the title of Latsan Khan, killed him at the first opportunity.

The death of Galdan while these occurrences were going on pro-
duced a lull in the march of rival policies in Central Asia. The Chinese,
satisfied with tranquillity, took no steps, while the new king of the
Eleuths hesitated as to the direction in which he should turn his
energy. This potentate was Tse Wang Rabdan, and in extenuation
of his restless turbulence it must be allowed that the Chinese armies
under their Manchu leaders had advanced far into the Gobi desert,
crushed the Khalkas on the Kerulon, and threatened to overrun
Kashgaria and Kuldja. The offensive measures of Tse Wang Rabdan
might then be justified on the ground that in a strict sense they were
really defensive. In the time of Galdan the struggle had been carried
on chiefly round the modern town of Urga. The new turn of the
political wheel brought Tibet into prominence. Tse Wang Rabdan
determined to put an end to Chinese influence in that country by
capturing the Dalai Lama and carrying him off to Hi. The scheme
was a bold one, and it would undoubtedly have succeeded if the young
Dalai Lama, discovered as a child in 1698 or 1699, had been left at
Lhasa. His timely removal to Sining was the sole cause of the failure
of the Eleuth King in accomplishing his main object.

Before we take up the description of the military expedition, the
facts that have been mentioned suggest a few pertinent observations
on the present situation, that has so much practical interest for us
and for the people of India. In a debate in the House of Lords on
the 26th of February Lords Ripon and Rosebery made speeches in
which the dominant note was incredulity as to the feasibility of Russian
intervention in Tibet. The former appealed to the natural difficul-
ties described by Dr. Sven Hedin, the latter questioned the likelihood

i 2

116 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

of any convention having been signed between Russians and Tibetans.
Both were disposed to represent that any apprehensions of outside
interference in Tibet, other, of course, than Chinese, rested on an
illusory foundation. We may refer these statesmen to the history
of Tibet from, let us say, 1690 to 1710. Lord Ripon will see that
Ghereng Donduk with an army at his back was a more successful
traveller than Sven Hedin. Lord Rosebery will admit that, if an
Eleuth prince could not merely conclude an arrangement with Tibet
but send an army to Lhasa to enforce it, the same achievement is
not beyond the capacity of a European State in possession of practic-
ally the same base — viz. the major part of the old Eleuth country,
while dominating beyond any possible disputation the rest.

To return to Tse Wang Rabdan. The Emperor Kanghi believed
that the death of Galdan meant a more tranquil time on the side of
Central Asia. He had no real love for those costly enterprises in the
desert beyond the Great Wall. He recognised the ability of Galdan,
but he counted on the balance of chances that his successor would
not be his equal, for it is rarely in the world's history that ' Amurath
to Amurath succeeds.' It happened, however, that the new chief
of the Eleuths was no less ambitious and scarcely less able than his
predecessor. But whereas Galdan had thought that the Chinese
armies were to be driven back in the deserts of Mongolia, Tse Wang
Rabdan came to the conclusion that the master-stroke might be
dealt to Chinese influence and fame in Tibet. For this reason he
recalled the treaty that the Tipa had concluded with his uncle, and
resolved on exacting vengeance for the murder of his family's ally.

In 1709 he organised his forces for a protracted expedition. Organ-
ising meant for him the collection of a sufficient number of camels,
and he advanced at the head of his army to Lob Nor or its neighbour-
hood. Here he learnt that the young Dalai Lama had been carried
ofi for safety to Sining on the borders of Shensi, and as his main object
was to capture the person of the priest ruler of Tibet, he decided to
divide his army into two bodies, leading one himself against Sining,
and entrusting the other to the command of his brother or cousin
Chereng Donduk for the express purpose of capturing Lhasa. The
available authorities are uncertain as to the relationship between the
Eleuth prince and Chereng or Zeren Donduk, but the probability is that
they were only cousins. It will be convenient to mention at this point
that Tse Wang Rabdan's attack on Sining was repulsed, or at all events
that it failed of success, and thus the Dalai Lama personally escaped
from the consequences of the capture and plunder of his capital.

The force with which Chereng Donduk marched from Lob Nor to
Lhasa did not exceed 6000 men, and it is stated that it was accom-
panied by several thousand camels. Some of these carried swivel
guns, which were discharged from their backs, but the bulk of them
conveyed the provisions of the army. Unlike modern travellers,

1904 THE CAPTUEE OF LHASA IN 1710 117

the expedition made little of the difficulties encountered on the route.
In the narrative of Chereng Donduk, as preserved by Gospodin
Unkoffsky, there are no striking pictures of salt deserts or sand-
storms, which makes one suspect that neither Colonel Prjevalsky nor
Dr. Sven Hedin discovered the best route from the north into Tibet.
The Eleuth army reached the district south of Tengri Nor without
loss and in good condition. At some point between that lake and the
capital it found the Tibetan forces drawn up to oppose its progress.

The Tibetan army of that day was not more formidable in a military
sense than its antitype is now, but Latsan Khan — the Talai Han
of Duhalde — had collected in some way or other a body of 20,000
men. Many of these were mercenaries from Mongolia or the Hima-
layas, and probably the bulk of those present were civilians or priests,
ignorant of the use of arms, and brought there for the day merely
to make a show. The advance of the Eleuth camel corps, and the
noise if not the execution of the swivel guns, put the whole of the
Tibetan force to the rout. It became a general sauve qui peut, and
in the confusion Latsan Khan, the Tibetan generalissimo, lost his
life, probably at the hands of some of his own followers. Thus com-
pletely defeated at the first encounter, the Tibetan army never re-
assembled. Military resistance to the Eleuth -invaders was not again
so much as attempted.

A few days after the fight near Tengri Nor the Eleuths reached
and entered Lhasa. They entered without firing a shot, the pagodas
and lamaseries were pillaged, an immense spoil was taken in the
residence of the Dalai Lama at Potola, and then, having plundered
several other towns in the valley which are not named, the Eleuth army
prepared to return to Ili. In addition to the loot taken the Eleuths
carried off a considerable number of lamas as prisoners. Duhalde
affirms, with a certain degree of satisfaction at the troubles of rival
priests, whom he calls elsewhere idolaters, that ' all the lamas who
could be found were put in sacks and strung across the backs of camels
and thus carried off to Tartary.'

Two minor incidents in this campaign may be mentioned. The
Eleuths found at Lhasa a Tartar (really Kirghiz) princess and her
son, who had come, with the permission of the Russians, from their
home in the Astrachan district to make the pilgrimage to the holy
city of Tibet. She was the sister-in-law of Ayuka, the Tourgouth
chief who had fled from Chinese territory, and whose grandson returned
later on with his people to China, as described by De Quincey in his
brilliant essay ' The Flight of a Tartar Tribe.' The presence of these
interesting pilgrims is in its way evidence of the ease with which
Lhasa could be reached from Russian territory. The second incident
was the narrow escape from the invaders of the ' lama missionaries,'
as Duhalde calls the Christian converts of his order, who were employed
on the collection of the materials for the great map of Tibet, with which

118 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

the name of D'Anville was subsequently associated. They had only
quitted Lhasa a few days when the Tartar hordes burst in upon it.

Unkoffsky, the Russian envoy to Tse Wang Rabdan, who visited
his camp or capital in 1722, states that on this expedition the Eleuths
suffered little or no loss. But their attack on Sining was repulsed,
and the failure to secure the person of the Dalai Lama converted
their daring invasion of Tibet into a mere plundering raid. But
that does not diminish the value, as an object-lesson for the present
day, of their capture of Lhasa.

In consequence of the Eleuth invasion, and the proof it afforded
that the Tibetan lamas were unable to protect themselves, the Emperor
Kanghi sent a Chinese garrison to Lhasa, and there was no further
invasion of Tibet until 1790, when the Goorkhas entered the country
and plundered Teshu Lumbo. The circumstances of that campaign,
including the Chinese invasion of Nepaul and the imposition of a humi-
liating treaty on the Goorkhas near Khatmandu, are fairly well known.

Less well known is the contest between the Eleuths and the
Russians that followed. Chereng Donduk therein gave further proof
of the military skill with which he had conducted the march to Lhasa.
The early relations of Russia and China are full of interesting matter.
In the seventeenth century the Emperor of China styled himself
' the Czar's elder brother.' When the fort of Albazin was razed to
the ground, and its residents — 101 in number, with their priest, Maxime
Leontieff — were carried off to Peking to found there the still existing
colony, and to build the first Greek church in 1695, no one anticipated
the complete inversion in their positions that has occurred within
the last twenty years. Baffled on the Upper Amour, the next forward
movement of the Russians was in the Kirghiz region towards the
possessions of Tse Wang Rabdan. The gold-seeking mission of
Prince Gagarine was followed by the establishment of several petty
forts or blockhouses. His lieutenant, Bukholz, founded one of the
more important of these, named Fort Yamishewa, on the stream
Priasnukha, and Tse Wang Rabdan, finding its proximity irksome,
sent Chereng Donduk to demolish it, and to expel or capture the
foreigners. The Russians suffered some loss, but discreetly abandoned
their fort and established themselves at a safer distance from the Eleuth
ruler. This event happened in 1715 or 1716, and the mission of Unkoffsky
was sent with the object of establishing more neighbourly relations.

On the principle that what has once been accomplished may be
repeated, this brief record of a half-forgotten, or at least obscure,
historical event may convince the British public that a Russian
invasion of Tibet, by diplomatic missions in the first place and by
armed force later on, is not the fantastic or impossible undertaking
that so many persons have represented it to be.

DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER.

1904

ISCHIA IN JUNE

IN these days of fevered excitement, the full ' harvest of a quiet eye '
can but seldom be reaped and gathered in. The driving and driven
twentieth century is always finding excuse for telephoning and tele-
graphing after us ' Hurry up ! ' One single fortnight, which is all
that I was able to spend this summer at the Bagni di Casamicciola, in
the island of Ischia, gives me but scant right to describe this paradise.
When I say ' paradise,' I mean literally a garden ; for such was our
first and last impression of the island. Following the road up the hill
from the landing-place in the direction of the principal hotels, past
the little villas of Casamicciola, we were always struck anew by the
rich luxuriance of vines, of orange and lemon trees ; roses, carnations,
and cactuses; and the brilliance of many a red geranium, tumbling in
cataract adown the tier-planted terrace walls. In the early morning, the
falls of deep blue convolvuli, escaping from the flower-beds over the wall,
showed masses of blossoms, larger and finer than I have ever seen
elsewhere. It is curious that whatever blossoms in this little island
attains to larger size and richer colour. Soil and sun are exceptionally
favourable. Ferns and flowers, some of them rare, grow wildly every-
where. I was told of a work I have not seen, which contains an
account in Latin of the flora of the island, and mentions two or more
plants belonging to tropical regions, but finding a congenial home in
chasms near the fumeoli, whence issue hot vapours from the labouring
furnaces below. For this garden rests on the bosom of a volcano. It
is a child of the volcano, which, besides bestowing so rich a gift of
fertile soil, is also so greatly beneficent in yielding the miraculously
healing mineral waters, known and used by suffering humanity for
more than two thousand years. Analyses of the various waters, or
accounts of their curative action, may be found in a long line of authors,
from Strabo down to Dr. Cox and his later confreres. The well-
appointed Stabilimento di Bagni of Signor Manzi at Casamicciola
(who, by the by, speaks English fluently, and whose wife is from Scot-
land) leaves nothing to be desired, and has been recently rearranged.
There are other bathing-houses of a cheaper sort, and on the sea-
shore is a large house of charity, ' Monte della Misericordia,' for sick

119

120 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

poor coming to be healed. At the time of our visit it was not yet
open, the season not having commenced. This pious foundation has
existed since the year 1604, when a small beginning was made by the
sale of fragments gathered up from the remains of a high feast of the
jeunesse doree of that period.

I have often wished we could set against the total of those who
have suffered in the earthquakes the incomparably greater number of
cures and restorations to more or less happy existence of those who
have benefited by the waters ; and man has been far more cruel to
his fellow man than ever has been Nature. It would be a grievous
task to go through the history of the Neapolitan provinces, which has
always found its echo in the neighbouring islands, and notably in
Ischia. Tyranny, oppression, pillage, war — unreal words to most of
us who run so glibly over them. The choice of King David might
here give utterance to our conclusion : ' Let us fall into the hand of
the Lord, for His mercies are great ; and let me not fall into the hand
of man.'

Since the last earthquake, in 1883, the new houses have been
built under Government inspection, after a plan adopted in Calabria,
and are held to be proof against earthquake shocks.

Our island is not a winter residence, for the winds are cold, and
storms make it too often impossible for steamers to land their pas-
sengers and mails. In July and August it is cooler than in the imme-
diate neighbourhood of Naples, and in the month of June we found it
delightful. It was free from the tourists, who mostly come in the
spring, and from the multitude of midsummer bathing guests. If the
vineyards were not in the rich ripeness of autumn, the flowers were in
their early summer freshness. The bright yellow Spanish broom, in
blossom all over the island, seemed continually to greet us with
heaven-sent laughter, as in innocent gladness of heart victorious over
an infernal havoc of lava. I recall one specially typical picture of
this prophetic triumph on the road leading downward from Barano to
Ischia, near the vent in the mountain-side of the latest eruption of
1302. "Wide-spreading black lava blocks contrasted with the brilliant
golden splendour of the flowers of the genista, springing up, Heaven
knows how, in the crevices, and all aglow in the kindred glory of a
setting sun. The right was flanked by a grove of pine trees, with their
dark green billowy masses of foliage, while ever and anon the castle
rock of Ischia came into view at the end of a forest glade, and the
expanse of deep blue summer sea sparkled below in varying tints and
lights.

Suddenly we had come on a little valley dip crossed by an aqueduct ,.
which conveys water to Ischia from the one only cold spring in the
island. Higher up stands the fragment of an ancient oak — the only
tree not of comparatively recent growth that I noticed ; but some old
inhabitants are probably to be found in the chestnut groves near

1904 ISCHIA IN JUNE 121

Barano. The island yields little or nothing for the ordinary food of
man. Everything must be brought from the mainland. The peasants
are very poor, and they emigrate in numbers every year to America,
never to return, as in other parts of Italy.

Everywhere the land is so broken up into hills, and rocks, and
chasms, that almost every turn affords a fresh vignette. Our ex-
plorations were limited to drives in the little carrozzelle, and there
is a fairly good road all round the island.

Monte Epomeo, 2,616 feet above sea-level, unrolls a wide map at
the foot of the climber ; and what a map is here presented may be
foretold by whoever has but some slight knowledge of the classic
sites which lie around Naples — I should prefer to say, which lie around
the tomb of the immortal poet, for this tomb of Virgil is the ideal
spot in a city alike indolent and corrupt in the past and the present,
and where bright beacons of a higher and productive life are but
rare.

A bare mention of some of the renowned sites visible from the
summit must suffice. The view was thus described to me by a nimble
spirit who ascended the mountain: — Looking south is unfolded the
entire Bay of Naples, with the well-known islands. Vesuvius, now
slumbering, scarce seems to breathe from its awful mouth ; the
majestic outline of its silent slopes sweeps westward towards the city.
On the right, the promontory and town of Sorrento, and the coast
leading down to Castellamare. Pompeii and Herculaneum are indi-
cated behind the suburbs, which extend in a long and weary line of
streets into Naples. At the opposite end of the city, and nearer to
our island, the villas and promontory of Posilipo. What shall I say
of Puteoli, point of pilgrimage for all who follow the journeyings of
St. Paul ? Then the sulphurous neighbourhood of Baiae ; the lofty,
wide-stretching promontory of Misenum ; Cumae, with its acropolis
(nearly opposite to Casamicciola) ; the Gulf of Gaeta, whose past
honours are divided between the Nurse of JLneas and Pope Pius IX.,
follows the long line of coast reaching to Monte Circello ; while
the Apennines of the Abruzzi are towering above the horizon on
the left. Such is the bird's-eye southern outlook from Monte
Epomeo.

There is no crater now traceable on the silent summit. As seen
from Casamicciola, the highest point displays yellow sandstone rock
surrounded by masses of many-tinted fragments of tufa, trachyte,
scoriae, pumice, and I know not what other combinations, running
over from Nature's melting-pot. Further down we perceive clefts of
the greyish-blue marl, which affords material for the industry of the
island — the brick and pottery works. In this marl are found shells
of fishes still common in the Tyrrhene Sea. The theory is that these
submarine deposits, flung upward in the earlier eruptions, washed up
with sea-water, hurled hither and thither, together with the lava,

122 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY July

finally choked up the crater's mouth. Later eruptions found vents in
the sides of the mountain.

Ancient tradition tallies in some measure with scientific theory,
telling how Monte Epomeo vomited fire and ashes, how the sea
receded and then returned, overflowing the land and extinguishing
the fire.

For examples of the lateral vents, see Monte Rotaro and II Mon-
tagnone, a couple of little extinct volcanoes near Casamicciola, with
lava streams flowing down to the sea. Another vent is evident at the
head of the broad stream of the lava of the Arso, which marks the
latest eruption of 1302, and which I have mentioned as now clad
with marvellous beauty of flowers and trees.

Driving from Barano to Forio, we passed one of the many stufe,
or fumeoli. Some of these pour out steam to the tune of 140° to
180° Fahrenheit, and in their depths may be heard the boiling and
bubbling of seething waters and turbulent gases. The theory of their
origin is the communication of waters of the sea with volcanic fires
immediately underneath. This, of course, can mean nothing else than
the visits of the god of the ocean, Poseidon, to his stormy old friend,
Typhoeus, who is lying buried alive under the ' hard couch,' Inarime
by name, which appears to have been upset over his mighty frame to
bind him fast by order of Zeus. This ' hard bed,' Inarime, is now
our fair island of Ischia. On the beach, near the pleasing little town
of Lacco Ameno, we trod on a black, sparkling sand, sensibly hot to
the feet, and in which hot water may be seen to rise immediately on
our making such holes as children at play might dig with their small
spades. The blackness is owing to an abundance of oxide of iron, the
sparkling to the presence of quartz, and the heat to the untiring
furnace below. Virgil sings, hard by to his mention of Inarime
(Mn. ix. 714) :

Miscent se maria, et nigrce adtolluntur arence.

But the black volcanic sand is not peculiar to Ischia ; it is common
in those regions.

We searched in vain, being no botanists, for a flower called by the
islanders the lily of Santa Restituta. It is a plant of the squill tribe,
flowering only in the autumn, and is fabled to have sprung up in the
sand near the spot where Santa Restituta came on shore after she had
suffered martyrdom in Africa, being thrown alive into a cask and
cast into the sea. The church dedicated to the saint contains a
series of modern pictures, telling the miraculous story of her life and
her landing in the island. These pictures are full of feeling, and are
well imagined, however wanting in technique. They are probably
the work of some young enthusiast, but the 'parroco ' could not give us
the name of the artist, or tell us anything about him. The simple
country people and sailors delight greatly in those graphic tellings of

1904 ISCHIA IN JUNE 123

the story of their honoured saint. They throng here on the day of her
festival (17th May), this year delayed because of repairs going for-
ward, and we were sorry not to remain a few days longer to behold the
festive gathering. The ' parroco ' told us the church is then decorated
with straw work, which is an industry of the island, richly coloured
and highly polished, but woefully wanting in taste.

(How is it, by the by, that, generally speaking and with few
exceptions, all Italian work of the present day, from the statues of
Dante to the straw work and the pottery of our island, is bathos ?)

In the chancel, beside the high altar, we found a Madonna and
Child, by an Old Master — a painting of great merit in colour and
expression, eyebrows and eyes singularly beautiful. Whether this
picture was brought here from the convent close by, or what was the
history of it, we could not ascertain. It stands in a very unfavourable
light and position — the ' parroco ' said because there was nowhere else
to put it. I ignorantly suggested it might be removed to an altar in
the nave, in place of some daub representing — I forget what. He
replied, in a tone of astonishment, that it would be impossible to put
a strange picture on an altar dedicated to some other saint or subject.

The basin for holy water at the church door is an exquisite little
cinerary urn in white marble. From two cornucopiae, reversed,
issues a garland of flowers, and below is a basket, also reversed, con-
taining fruits and flowers. The touching dedication is by a wife to
her husband. It was found, with other urns and remains, in the
valley of San Martino, near by. Another church in the street of the
little town contains some of these ' finds.' A marble column is spoken
of as having been brought from a temple of Hercules ; but the doors
were closed, and we did not effect an entrance.

I should not omit all mention of the church at Forio, planted
on a rock jutting out into the sea, with a beautiful view, and
interesting within from the many votive offerings of sailors and
fishermen, and the painted tiles, which may perhaps be described
as a coarse majolica ware. The road from Barano to Forio winds
downward above the heads of numerous deep ravines, which run
straight into the sea, and are here and there used by the peasants
as wine-cellars.

One afternoon the small boy driver of our carrozzella, a sharp
urchin of twelve years old, was bent on showing us ' Casamicciola
antica,' a melancholy sight indeed. Houses in ruins, a large church
in the centre, of which the walls only remain standing. This devasta-
tion was wrought by the earthquake of 1883.

From the earliest up to recent times, inhabitants and visitors
have fled before the earthquakes. The first settlers in the island are
said to have transferred their homes to Cumse, on the opposite shore
of the mainland. This latest earthquake of 1883 has left many
beautifully situated villas uninjured, but now scarcely visited by

124 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

their owners, who are either intimidated by dread of a recurrence, or
heart-stricken by memories of relatives and friends lost or maimed
among the ruins. I noticed an unusual number of lame and crippled
among the people, and was told that most of these had been among
the victims. Dr. Menella gave us a touching account of the loss of
his father, buried amid the ruins of their house. The story of his
leading his mother away in safety reminded one of the narrative of
the younger Pliny. Menella said the whole event remained in his
mind like the memory of a bad dream. He could scarcely believe
that it was his actual self who had endured that time, or that the
thing had ever happened.

Hardly less heartrending was the recital of the poor old keeper of
the cemetery, in which I know not how many of the gathered-in
corpses lie buried. The old man lost his wife and five children — his
whole family. I understood him to say that the ruins of his house
are still lying among those we had just seen in ' Casamicciola antica.'
He related at length the prompt visit of the King to the scene of sorrow,
and the awful task of the soldiers employed in digging out the bodies.
It was sad to hear that some of the peasants came down immediately
from the hills and carried off money and valuables from among the
debris. The site of the burial-place, above the sea, affords a soothing
view of beauty beyond ; but the high surrounding walls shut out
everything, and enhance the deep depression and desolation of the
place. It is passed on the road from Casamicciola to Ischia, at the
foot of the little extinct volcano of Monte Rotaro.

We found the drive to Ischia one of the loveliest in the island,
the sea ever and anon coming into sight just below, deep blue that
day, with white-plumed billows rising and vanishing on the surface,
chasing each other like evanescent swans. Near the town arises a
grove of pine trees. And here, in the long street, is the Palazzo Reale ;
and here, with its garden, richly planted on the lava stream, is the
Villa MeuricofEre.

Built into and upon a lofty solitary rock of volcanic tufa rising
abruptly out of the sea, at the end of a narrow neck of land, is the
Castle of Ischia, whose outline is familiar to us in many sketches,
and in Stanfield's grand picture, recently exhibited in London, the
property of Lady Wantage. The story of the Castle would be the
history of the island— long and distressful. It is hallowed by the
memory of Vittoria Colonna, ' uncanonised ' saint, sought by the
master minds of Italy in that eventful period, and the honoured friend
of Michael Angelo. Her name is inseparable from the Castle of Ischia.
Through the utterance of her lofty and humble soul, in the sonnets
and poems which were the consolation of her troubled life, she may
become to us more than a name to conjure by. As poems they are
of studied perfection. Restrained by the * freno dell' arte,' they give
passionate expression to unchangeable affection, and to the sublime

1904 ISCHIA IN JUNE 125

faith and trust of genuine piety. And. that she was sensible to the
ministrations of the beauty of Nature we may see in her lines :

Quand' io dal caro scoglio miro intorno
La terra e '1 ciel nella vermiglia aurora,
Quante nebbie nel cor son nate, allora
Scaccia la vaga vista e il chiaro giorno.

The volume is an Italian classic, firmly fixed as such in Italian
literature as is the castled rock in the Tyrrhene Sea.

A. P. IRBY.

126 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

CONCERNING SOME OF THE
'EN FA NTS TROUVtiS* OF LITERATURE

I SUPPOSE that most young men, even those who appear to be merely
reasonable or hopelessly commonplace, have experienced, at one time
or another, some sort of sentimental or spiritual awakening, which
has rendered them susceptible to the elevating influences of poetry.
Religious enthusiasm, domestic affliction, or involuntary exile from
the old familiar places ; a sudden sense of the hollowness and muta-
bility of earthly things — all these are calculated to encourage the
poetic mood, although, where there exists any hereditary predisposi-
tion, it may be called into being by the death of a goldfish, or the
escape of a favourite canary. With or without any previous training
or natural capacity, however, it is particularly apt to assert itself
when a chivalrous and susceptible adolescent imagines himself, for
the first time, to be really in love, and when, as so often happens,
he finds that the course of his passion is running anything but
smooth.

Poets, as we know, have written almost exhaustively upon the
subject of the affections, and those that were hopeless or unrequited
have ever seemed to appeal more particularly to their sympathies.
So, when the young lover, quite by accident, as may happen, turns to
the pages of some great poet for solace or consolation, lo and behold,
he discovers that even this choice spirit has gone through all the
varied symptoms from which he is now suffering himself, and that he
has described them in the very same language that he would have
made use of, if only the said choice spirit had not been before-
hand with him !

So many people, ever since the very beginning of the world, have
been, or have imagined themselves to be, in love ! About love ' pure
and simple,' the love of the young man for the maiden, it would seem
to be very difficult to write anything that was absolutely original ;
although, of course, the old torments may be described in a new and
appropriate sequence of words. The young lover, therefore, can revel
to his heart's content in rhythmical combinations and reiterations, ex-
pressive of the state of his feelings. The swing of the metre fascinates

1904 'ENFANTS TROUVtiS' OF LITERATURE 127

and enthralls him ; the rhymes haunt him, even when he is asleep.
He ' lisps in numbers,' without exactly knowing or caring whose
numbers they are ; his whole soul is as though flooded with the music
of the spheres. His eye begins ' rolling in a fine frenzy ' ; he strongly
suspects that he must have been born, unwittingly, in ' a golden
clime,' and, by and by, all his thrills and tremors find vent in a slim
little booklet, bound, generally, in dark green linen or white vellum
(although I have one in my possession which is bound in black calico,
whereupon is depicted a shattered lyre, surmounted by skull and
cross-bones), dedicated to mysterious initials, and published anony-
mously, or under a nom de plume, ' at the earnest request of friends.'
Even as these remarks may apply to the passion of love, so is it with

The measure of Pleasure, the measure of Glory,
That is meted out to a human lot.

In every emotional crisis and emergency of life, there is always a
chance that an enthusiastic and impulsive youth may be tempted to
express himself in ' numbers ' without possessing any of the qualifica-
tions which are essential to the true poetic calling. The phase is an
acute one ; it will soon pass off, but for the time being he feels that he
is existing upon a higher plane than most of his workaday neighbours,
and it is because of this rapid development and subsequent evanescence
of mood that he seems to be especially marked out by destiny for
what the elder D'Israeli has designated ' a man of one book.'

For this it would be hard to blame the author. Fertility is no
nearer allied to strength than prodigality to riches, but yet, for all
this, fertility and sterility must remain two utterly different things.
From the point of view of the collector, the ' one book ' of an unsus-
pected poetaster may grow, with time, into something ' rare and
strange ' ; a source, too, of never-ending amazement, to those who
are acquainted with its author's personality. And, no doubt, when
he is comfortably married and settled, and embarked in banking,
brewing, stockbroking, or what not, he, too, may start at sight of the
slim green or white creature of his imagination as though it were an
asp or a scorpion. Sometimes, fearing lest its heterodox opinions
should revolutionise the world, or else, when he thinks that its tone
may be regarded as too sensuous and redolent of the ' fleshly school,'
he will endeavour to strangle it, shortly after its birth, arresting its
headlong course to the butterman by buying up the very limited
edition at his own cost. This was what happened — a good many
years ago now — to the poems of ' Alastor,' only in that instance,
unless I am mistaken, it was the lady-mother of the aspiring author
who took the initiative and bought up the edition. I wonder how
many persons now living would be able to tell me her name ?

I have always felt that there was something particularly pathetic
about the fate of these poor children of the imagination ; mere accidents

128 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

as it were, resulting from a single juvenile indiscretion, whose parents
are so often ashamed of having begotten them, and who will never
have any brothers or sisters ; and just as a compassionate mother-
superior might fold to her bosom some poor little esposito, discovered,
tied up in a bundle, at the door of a foundling hospital, I have always
been one of the first to give shelter and welcome to the waifs and
strays that are thus cast out upon a cold world without anybody to
' log-roll ' them, or give them a word of comfort or encouragement.
There they stand, safely enclosed in their comfortable bookcase, and
I feel almost irresistibly impelled to write about some of them. They
have shelf-mates, too, with whom I have kindly permitted them to
rub shoulders (alas, with no hope of any possible contagion !), trans-
parently anonymous, the identity but flimsily veiled, or else, wearing
fearlessly the proud cognisance of their illustrious parentage : a pre-
sentation copy of The Wanderer, and of the beautiful Love-Sonnets
of Proteus ; poems of the late Lord De Tabley, with those of Mr.
Theodore Watts-Dunton (his splendid Ode upon the burial of Cecil
Rhodes not yet incorporated with them) ; and to some of these treasures
it will be difficult for me not to allude, seeing them thus ranged on
high whenever I look upwards. As, however, the more accomplished
singers here represented have already found appreciative critics far
abler than I am to sound their praises, I shall endeavour to confine
myself as much as possible to the study of my little nursery of
foundlings.

As is so often the case, how alike they all are, at a first glance, not
only in dress, but in most of their prominent features ! They have
the pinched, attenuated aspect of things that have been starved,
and baby-farmed, and treated ungenerously, and so take up but little
room upon one's shelves ; and when they do not, as often, breathe
entirely of earthly passion, or are not merely weak invertebrate
imitations of Rudyard Kipling, Conan Doyle, or Adam Lindsay
Gordon, and others, rollicking, bacchanalian, or, it may be, patriotic,
how terribly and hopelessly melancholy they are apt to be with the
morbid and lugubrious despair of the later French decadents, whose
felicity of expression, however, has been cruelly denied them : a form
of melancholy which seems to be the almost inseparable accompani-
ment of intellectual youth in the age in which we are living.

Poor Maurice Rollinat with his Apparitions, his' Nevroses, his
Spectres, and his Tenebres, has just made his tragic final exit. But,
a disciple himself, he has, like his master, Baudelaire, a numerous
following in this country. In the index of the little black-hound
volume of which I have already made mention, and which belongs to
what I may appropriately call ' the death's head and cross-bones '
school of poetry, I find several evidences of this. Here we have Ode
to a Dead Body, The Corpse, The Suicide, &c., whilst there is something
gruesome, in another book by the same author, which is evidently

1904 'ENFANTS TROUVES' OF LITERATURE 129

derived from the loves of Les deux Poitrinaires. These volumes,
however, are merely mentioned parenthetically, and must on no
account be confounded with any of those that are housed in my
nursery of enfants trouves. Rather would I compare them, in the
language of Le Sieur de Brantome, to des batards de grande famille,
the result of a mere passing flirtation with the muse, of one who has
come to be a redoubtable critic and a powerful writer of the realistic
school, but who has yet permitted them to bear his name upon their
title-pages. Perhaps they do not pretend to be anything more than
free translations, after all ?

In the beautiful sequence of poams entitled A Shropshire Lad, and
which again I only venture to allude to by way of a verification, for
here we are confronted with the work of a true poet, this note of latter-
day sadness is particularly accentuated. The genius of the author
communicates it to the reader, and we lay down the volume oppressed
by a sense of haunting despondency at thought of what has been so
persistently and mercilessly reiterated :

Let me mind the house of dust
Where my sojourn shall be long,

and where, to quote an exquisite final verse : >

Lovers lying two by two

Ask not whom they sleep beside ;
And the bridegroom all night thro'

Never turns him to the bride.

By this concentration of thought upon the obvious and inevitable
end of all, we are led to assume that Mr. A. E. Housman is still young.
Like the traditional eels, that were said to have become used to
the skinning process, the older thinkers have already realised ' the
tragedy of Condemnation and Reprieve,' and have endeavoured to
make the best of it, though to neither young nor old can the idea be
altogether exhilarating. There is a Spanish proverb which says that
' Death, like the sun, should not be looked at too fixedly,' and surely
its * rapture of repose,' so beautifully described by one who was yet
sufficiently infected with the melancholy of his time to write as though
all the joys of earth had come to an end with his thirty-third year,
is more profitable and comforting to dwell upon than

La pourriture lente et 1'ennui du squelette.

Even Maurice Rollinat has admitted that there is always cremation !
Mr. A. E. Housman, however, is not to be counted amongst the
' men of one book,' and I am in hopes that so accomplished a singer
will soon cease to derive his chief inspirations from the creak of the
gibbet and the odour of the charnel-house. Another young poet,
whose last book I have just opened, and one who is also endowed

VOL. LVI— No. 329 K

130 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

with the true poetic gift, concludes thus a poem which is entitled

Ennui :

The sun has stink into a moonless sea
And every road leads down from Heaven to Hell,
The pearls are numbered on Youth's rosary,
I have outlived the days desirable.
What is there left ? And how shall dead men sing
Unto the loosened strings of Love and Hate,
Or take strong hands to Beauty's ravishment ?
Who shall devise this thing ?
To give high utterance to Miscontent,
Or make Indifference articulate ?

Whilst, elsewhere in the same volume, he thus deliberately invites
those very emotions which (if we except the first of them) have ever
been regarded by the majority of mankind as their most unwelcome
guests ;

0 Love ! 0 Sorrow ! O desired Despair 1

1 turn my feet towards the boundless sea,
Into the dark I go and heed not where,
So that I come again at last to thee !

But I must return from poets of a higher plane to my waifs and
strays. Here is an anonymous singer who makes his ' indifference
a-rticulate ' in the following lines :

WThat have I here to live for ? What the goal

I reach at length by nearing day by day ?
What is the composition of the soul

That fails to guide me with its flickering ray ?

Another young poet — for I have a shrewd suspicion that he must
l)e young — would have preferred to have remained

A protoplasmic substance, undefined,
Floating upon the bosom of the deep,

and never to^have been born into the world at all. He is indignant at
the impertinence of his own incarnation, without so much as a ' with
your leave or by your leave,' though how to stand upon ceremony
with ' a protoplasmic substance, undefined,' it is difficult to imagine.

Here is the angry protest of yet another anonymous bard, who,
I fancy, from his style, must be even younger still :

Why was I born, I often ask,

Into this world of Death and Doubt ?

To con an uncongenial task ?

I can't make out I I can't make out !

I had despised so mean a boon ;

The life I share with boor and lout,
But ' ah the die was cast too soon ' I

My heart moans out, my heart moans out I

1904 'ENFANTS TROUVtiS' OF LITERATURE 131

There is generally more spirit and joie de vivre about verses of this
calibre when the writer has availed himself of the ballad form, about
which there is generally a certain jauntiness of movement, or when
he condescends to deal with historical subjects, however distorted,
because he is then obliged, for the time being at least, to get outside
his own personal sensations, and to cease preying, as it were, upon his
own vitals.

From a small volume of Jacobite songs, printed some years ago,
and then suppressed possibly out of deference to the feelings of the
reigning Royal family, for I have never chanced upon it since, I
cull the following gem. The lines are expressive of the passionate
love of Flora Macdonald for ' the Young Pretender,' with whom, in
spite of her loyal devotion, her relations are known to have been

purely platonic :

Oh, Charlie, Charlie ! with thy face

So comely and bewitching 1
Of royal race, thy princely grace

Has set nay poor heart itching !

An ' itching ' or a ' moaning out ' heart : which of the two would
be the more undesirable possession ? ' I can't make out ! I can't
make out ! '

Very different in quality is the spirited ballad of Perkin Warbeck,
which I find in the distinguished collection of poems entitled The City

of the Soul.

At Turnay in Flanders I was born,

Fore-doomed to splendour and sorrow,
For I was a king when they cut the corn
And they strangle me to-morrow !

Thus laments poor Perkin in the opening verse, by which it will be
apparent that the poet accepts the orthodox historic version of his
story.

I was nothing but a weaver's son,

(he is made to confess later on in the ballad),

I was born in a weaver's bed,
My brothers toiled and my sisters spun,
And my mother wove for our bread.

Had this been fully proved, all would have been plain sailing, and
the hero of the poem would not have shared with the ' Man in the Iron
Mask ' the doubtful honour of ranking still as one of the most im-
penetrable mysteries of European history, for there are many people
now living who believe that he was indeed ' the milk White Rose of
York ' after all, in spite of the confession extorted from him when in
prison by the astutest of our Henries. Who can decide, at this
distance of time, when, as I read in my morning paper, ' grave doubts '
exist as to the death in the Temple of a much more modern scion of ill-
fated royalty — the unhappy little Louis XVII., for whose coffin a search

K 2

132 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

is even now being made ' in the cemetery in which he was probably
buried, in order to try and settle, once for all, the question whether it
was the poor little King or another who was buried there ' ? There
are ' Perkin Warbecks ' too, in America, I am informed, quite ready to
prove that they are descended from this later royal captive ; and where
so much difference of opinion exists as to ' how history was written '
in the eighteenth century, I feel that it would be rash indeed to make
sure of what may or may not have happened in the reign of the first of
the Tudors.

Be this how it may, here are two charming verses. ' Perkin ' is,
again lamenting his hard fate :

For I was not made for wars and strife,

And blood and slaughtering,
I was but a boy who loved his life,

And I had not the heart of a king.

Oh ! why hath God dealt so hardly with me,

That such a thing should be done,
That a boy should be born with a king's body

And the heart of a weaver's eon ?

By a process of thought-transference which will be obvious to the
initiated, I am here reminded of the terrible Ballad of Reading Gaolr
with its splendours and inequalities ; its mixture of poetic force, crude
realism, and undeniable pathos. Perhaps this hard-featured offspring
of genius, begotten in shame and misfortune, ought not, appropriately y
to keep company with the pretty effeminate weaklings of which, for
the most part, my collection consists, but there it is, nevertheless,
standing out, in wan and ghastly pre-eminence, upon the shelf, its
brow indelibly branded with the stigma of the ' Broad Arrow.' The
genesis of the poem is fraught with tragic interest. It is dedicated by
the author (a man of letters, and a poet of culture and refinement,
who unfortunately became subject, through his own delinquencies,
to the rigours of the law) to the memory of a trooper of the Royal
Horse Guards, one ' Woolridge ' or ' Wolredge ' (as I have lately
learnt) : a handsome good-for-nothing scoundrel, though a smart
soldier when sober, who, after a career of drink and dissipation,
ended by cutting the throat of his wife (a deserving young woman,
who supported herself by dressmaking at Windsor) with a razor,
which he took down with him from Knightsbridge Barracks for the
purpose. For this crime, as we read in a preface to the ballad, he
was hanged at Reading Gaol on the 7th of July, 1896. Oddly enough,
the first line of the poem contains an inaccuracy, due, perhaps, to its
author's Celtic origin :

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,

&c. As we are particularly informed, upon the fly-leaf, that the con-
demned man had been a trooper in the Blues, he would certainly not

1904 'ENFANTS TROUVtiS" OF LITERATURE 133

have worn a ' scarlet coat ' even if blood and wine had changed to
some abnormal colour ! This error, however, which it would have
been easy enough to correct, in no way interferes with the interest of
the poem. There is no joie de vivre here ; none of the careless abandon-
ment of the ordinary narrative ballad. All is grim, concentrated
tragedy, from cover to cover. A friend of mine, who looked upon
himself as a judge of such matters, told me once that he would
have placed certain passages in this poem, by reason of their
terrible tragic intensity, upon a level with some of the descriptions in
Dante's Inferno, were it not that ' The Ballad of Reading Gaol was so
much more infinitely human ' !

Let those who are inclined to smile at such a comparison read it
through, from beginning to end, and then judge for themselves. For
my own part, an impression of hopeless and helpless human agony
haunted me for days after reading it for the first time : an effect
which a descent into the Inferno has certainly never yet produced
upon me, although I have heard the groaning swing of the great
bronze doors at St. John Lateran which are said to have suggested
to the immortal Florentine the door over which was written these
terrible words, ' di colore oscuro,'

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che 'ntrate.

For Dante's august poem is open, to some extent, to the criticism
which Sainte-Beuve applies to Paradise Lost. The whole thing is
imaginary from beginning to end : a quality common to most works of
genius, it may be said, only that of this, in the present instance, for all its
beauty and magnificence, the reader is conscious from the first. Even
what I may call the most ' infinitely human ' incident of the Divina
Commedia — an incident of everyday occurrence in our own times, to
which poets and dramatists have clung with so much tenacity — has,
I fear, been a good deal coloured by the poet's luxuriant imagination.
An Italian savant, 'who had investigated the matter at Rimini and
elsewhere, assured me quite lately that Francesca must have been at
least forty-five years old at the time of her supposed act of infidelity,
which (even assuming that it ever occurred, a very doubtful matter)
the brothers Malatesta treated with unconcern, dwelling together
afterwards in perfect harmony, whilst the lady died peacefully in her
bed at a good old age. I hope with all my heart that this was not the
case ! Early illusions are precious things, and hard to part with, and
for me, at least, the guilty couple will continue to float on together
through space, for all time — as depicted in the well-known painting by
Ary Scheffer — transfixed by the same rapier, as I saw Signora Duse
transfixed, with the young gentleman who acted the role of Paolo,
after sitting for five mortal hours at the Costanzi Theatre, at Rome,
during the first night's performance of Gabriele d' Annunzio's recent
drama. But this is a digression.

134 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

The author of The Ballad of Reading Gaol essentially a { sensitive,'
learning what is to be the doom of the unfortunate trooper, who takes
his exercise in the same yard, though ' in another ring,' has thoroughly
imbued himself with his feelings, or with what he conceives that they
must be, and imagines, probably wrongly, that all his fellow- prisoners
are similarly impressed. Here is a graphic description of ' the man
who has to swing ' :

He walked amongst the Trial Men

In a suit of shabby grey ;
A cricket cap was on his head

And his step seemed light and gay ;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye
Upon the little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went

With sails of silver by.

The miserable sensations of a condemned felon are communicated
to the reader's mind in all their gruesome intensity. It was /, and no
other (or so I felt whilst reading), who had to ' die a death of shame,
on a day of dark disgrace ' ; to have ' a noose about ' my neck and ' a
cloth upon my face,' and to * drop feet foremost, through the floor,
into an empty space ' ; I became, for the time being, one of those
' souls in pain ' whose fate it is, as a beginning of the end, to

... sit with silent men

Who watch him night and day ;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,

And when he tries to pray,
Who watch him lest himself should rob

The prison of its prey.

The shivering Chaplain robed in white,

The Sheriff, stern with gloom,
And the Governor, all in shiny black,

With the yellow face of Doom.

All these seemed to be gathering round me in the flesh in the hour of
my agony, whilst

The hangman, with his gardener's gloves,
Slipped through the padded door.

Then, too, how wonderfully vivid is the description of the long night
before the condemned man's execution, when, as we read :

Crooked shapes of Terror crouched

In the corner where we lay ;
And each evil sprite that walks by night

Before us seemed to play ;

1904 'ENFANTS TROUVES' OF LITERATURE 135

They glided past, they glided fast,

Like travellers through a mist :
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon

Of delicate turn and twist.

What is a ' rigadoon ' ? Some kind of weird, diabolical taran-
tella ? Perhaps I am writing myself down ignoramus, but I
candidly confess that I never heard of one before, and I am all the
more impressed by the word because I have no notion of its correct
meaning. La femme aime Vinconnu (as a wise and witty French-
man has justly remarked), so a ' rigadoon,' whatever kind of measure
it may be, will always have a certain mysterious fascination for me,
until, as may happen, it becomes a fashionable cotillon figure at balls
and soirees dansantes.

Let us turn to something less lugubrious, even if it be less ' infinitely
human.'

Words of this description, which begin by being merely far-fetched
and unusual, and which hence seem to be fraught with something of
occult significance to sensitive minds and ears, have always been
extremely popular not only with the young ' men of one book,' but
with their intellectual superiors. I inquired, the other day, of a
singularly intelligent little girl of seven years old, what she took to
be the true meaning of the word ' poetry.' She was silent for some
time, and then said, as after due reflection : ' I think it must mean
beautiful words, and looking upwards ' : a relief to me, I confess,
for I had felt almost certain that she would have fancied that poetry
consisted in rhyme !

The definition is not at all a bad one, for, in spite of certain modern
innovators who take a different view, ' beautiful words,' combined
with the power of looking at life from a standpoint inaccessible to the
multitude, must ever go far towards the making of a true singer.
But surely the most important thing of all must be that the poet
should be endowed with that far-reaching human sympathy which
enables its possessor to receive and assimilate the subtle influences
which produce no impression upon more stolid natures, and which
engenders the precious faculty de tout comprendre et de tout pardonner,
and this the most ' beautiful words ' in our language are powerless to
supply !

The introduction of words which, independent of actual beauty,
were archaic, and out of date, was made fashionable in poetry some
thirty or forty years ago by a great singer, whose voice has not been
very long silent, and of whom we read — in the interesting biography
published, after his death, by his distinguished brother — that he kept
a whole list of them in reserve, to be called to the front, like emergency
men, when the occasion seemed to require it. I can thoroughly
sympathise with the magic spell of the pre-Raphaelite movement :
with the peace, and reverence, and far-off, holy calm with which a

136 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

return to ' the primitive ' in Art or Literature is prone to inspire certain
exceptional spirits, and so have more patience than most of my neigh-
bours with the so-called ' affectations ' of this particular school.

Lo, only a few strokes, it may be, of an ordinary ' J ' pen, and the
present, with its fret and turmoil, its shrieking and snorting trains,
' trams,' and abominable motor-cars, seems to shrivel up and dis-
appear like a decayed bat's wing ! Once more we are in pieno quattro-
cento, revelling in the vague iridescent hues of early pots, cathedral
window-panes, and faded embroideries, or in the cruder smalts, and
chromes, and dead gold of the old illuminators. There is no ' gold
reef city,' no ' De Beers Consolidated Diamond Company,' and the
diamonds of Brazil, with the rubies of Burmah and Ceylon, very seldom
find their way to Europe. In the very old days — say about B.C. 41 —
Cleopatra, as we know, was possessed of a pair of pearl earrings,
which, judging by a picture I have seen representing her in the act of
dropping one of them into a goblet in order that she may drink it off
as a toast to Mark Antony, must have been unusually fine specimens
of their kind. But then we must remember that she was a queen
and a Ptolemy — a family celebrated for their learned and artistic
tastes — beloved, too, of the mightiest conqueror in the world, who,
for aught we know, may even have fished up the gems in far-off
Britain, his recent conquest, and to which, we read with some surprise,
he was originally attracted by the reputation it had acquired for the
beauty of its pearls. For a person of so much consideration, slaves
were, no doubt, delving and diving all over the world with the object
of gratifying her slightest whim. Long after the second Triumvirate,
however, Oriental pearls and jewels of the first quality were only
' casual ' in their appearance and unattainable save to the monarch
upon his throne. Dame or ' damozel ' of the Middle Ages, therefore,
who wished to set off her ' trailing robes of samite or brocade,' had
to content herself with gems of inferior value, such as we may meet
with, even now, roughly encrusted in ancient chalices, or in the massive
bindings of early missals. In an old family document to which I
lately obtained access, a necklace of carnelian ' cut in tables ' is
deemed worthy of being handed down to posterity as an heirloom,
and to such jewels, each one emblematic of some particular virtue,
the young poets who are the apostles of sham medievalism are wont
to give, perhaps, a somewhat undue pre-eminence, chiefly because, in
so many instances, their names consist of rare and ' beautiful words,'
which minister to their craving for the ideal. Thus,
Beryl is a liquid gem ;
Bright and pure as when a beam
Cleaveth water . . .

writes one of our modern pre-Raphaelites, in a little volume which
lies open before me ;

Amethyst ; a place is set
For its lovely violet, &c. &c.

1904 'ENFANTS TROUVtiS' OF LITERATURE 137.

Then, too, we have the ' onyx ' and the ' sardonyx,' the * chalce-
dony ' and the * chrysoprase,' though, for obvious reasons, not
unconnected with the exigencies of rhyme, some of our latter-day
singers are apt to prefer, for the ending of their lines, the mysterious
' chrysolite,' which is, amongst gems, even as is the ' asphodel ' in the
poet's flower garden.

Chrysolite for goodness doth
Sparkle like an oven's mouth,

I read in the same little volume, and here it is thrown in gratuitously
and entirely independent of rhyme.

We said things wonderful as chrysolites,

writes the accomplished author of The City of the Soul, from which
I have already quoted, and where we also read of a sword fashioned
of the same perishable material.

The above verses, in spite of a few doubtful rhymes, are full of
spiritual suggestiveness. All that is vulgar, sensual, ' of the earth,
earthy,' seems to crumble away and perish as we read. Nor is the
book from which I have made most of these extracts one of those
fatherless foundlings to whom I have given a home merely out of
charity. The author of its being has set his name upon the title-
page like a man ; but, alas, this is its sole claim to virility ! The
contents are emasculate and disappointing for all their prettiness,
besides being — as the late Mr. A. W. Kingiake remarked of a
certain Parliamentary candidate — ' very considerably tainted with
purity.'

After all, the world is not wholly composed of saints and ascetics.
There are healthy as well as wwhealthy yearnings in the human heart,
which even such pure gems as the chrysolite are powerless to satisfy !

* What man is there of you, of whom if his son ask bread, will he give
him a stone ? ' It is a case of ' beautiful words and looking upwards '
with a vengeance. We are almost tempted to wish that the poet had
looked downwards sometimes for a change, and picked up some-
thing a little more ' infinitely human,' even if he chanced upon it in
the gutter !

Still, ' good ' and ' wonderful,' indeed, is the * chrysolite ' if it can
illuminate the souls of the sadder of our poets with its ' oven-mouth '
sparkle, and lead them thus decorously and discreetly towards the

* realms of the higher fancy.' I cannot say that I ever remember to
have set eyes upon one myself !

Occasionally, when these green or white firstfruits of genius seem
to their creators to be too slim and ephemeral to bear the rude buffets
of ' this world of Death and Doubt,' they are padded out with a
romance in blank verse, or in rhymed heroic measure, divided into
' parts ' or * cantos.' It is from such a volume, and one that was

138 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

not published anonymously, either, that I quote the following descrip-
tion of the heroine :

A line of beauty did the eyebrows trace,
And, like the Grecian fair one, down her face
In a straight line, her scenting-organ sped.

(The italics are my own.) Alas, poor ' scenting-organ ' ! But for
the immortal line describing thee as ' tip-tilted like the petal of a
fiow'r,' how seldom hath honourable mention been made of thee in
Poesy ! Eyes, lips, ears, hair, with many etceteras, have come in for
almost more than their fair share of notice and approbation, and yet,
without thee, of what account are any of them ? Whilst, when thou
surpassest thy ordinary dimensions by one-fourth part of the traditional
inch that is said to be so much ' upon a man's nose,' the courage and
chivalry of Cyrano de Bergerac himself can scarcely persuade us to
tolerate thee, even upon the boards of the Parisian stage !

This is the same young lady — she of the ' scenting-organ ' — of
whom we read in the same poem that her

• . • forth-bursting proved her mother's death.

Once more we are treading upon the solid earth. We descend, as
it were, with a thud, from the ' realms of the higher fancy ' ; from
the * protoplasmic substance undefined ' ; ' indifference articulate ' ;
from ' onyx ' and ' sardonyx,' ' chalcedony ' and ' chrysolite ' ; from
the aesthetic atmosphere of those who wander aimlessly in the fields
of asphodel after having breakfasted off the ' Bodley bun.'

And yet these lines, for all their seeming absurdity, result in
reality from ' looking upwards,' and straining after the 'perfection of
expression which seems to demand the employment of ' beautiful
words.' ' Dilatation,' ' exaltation of spirit ' — we may call it what we
like — an inspiration ' of sorts,' are not wanting, but the author has
not been endowed with the faculty of discrimination, and so all these
go for naught. Still, the man who can so far forget himself and his
ordinary traditions as to allude to a nose as a ' scenting-organ,' whilst
incurring, it may be, the ridicule of ' the great uninspired,' has soared
in spirit to regions that are far beyond reach of the arrows of their
scorn, where to describe the feature in question by its usual name
would seem almost like an insult and a sacrilege. When he can bring
himself to call a nose ' a nose ' again, he will have fallen once more
to earth, where, I fancy, judging from the rest of the contents of his
book, he is likely to abide for ever. How precious, therefore, should
be the outward and visible sign of his brief trial trip into the Empyrean,
if things become valuable merely by reason of their rarity, which
everything leads us to believe that they do !

Some of these slender little volumes contain, indeed, the subli-
mated essence of their authors' poetical being. We hold in our hands,

1904 'ENFANTS TROUVfiS' OF LITERATURE 139

as we read them, a part of the man's nature which bears no sort of
resemblance to his material self, as we may come to know it when
once he has ' reverted to the briar.' His ' material self ' we may meet,
probably, as often as we choose, if such meetings can afford us any
satisfaction. We may see it stout, prosperous, complacent, hailing
cabs or omnibuses with the well-furled umbrella of conventional
respectability, and little suspecting that, for all this, we know for
certain that ' in the days that are done ' it became responsible — at the
instigation of that other ' self,' which is now dead and departed — for
some such verses as the following :

Our passions sustain us, and move

To the motion of instinct desire ;
With the rhythmical anguish of love,

And the heaving of tremulous fire.

The thirst unassuaged yet unsloken

Will be drowned in the fiercest delight,
And love will be rent and be broken
And kissed out of feeling or sight.

(Only this is an exceedingly favourable example.)

But I might as well endeavour to describe the features and com-
plexions of a whole regiment of soldiers, together with those of their
commanding officers — for all the minds represented in my collection
are by no means upon an equality — as to set down the characteristics
of each one of the separate volumes upon my inconveniently crowded
shelves. I have quoted from barely a dozen of them, and already
time and space are coming to an end, and yet there they stand —
many more — in their serried lines, and I am not at all sure
that I ought not to have given precedence to some that I have left
quite unnoticed, and whose lettered backs, to my sensitive eye, seem
suddenly to have assumed a piqued and offended expression.

Then, too, there are the ladies, the female poets, illustrious and
obscure, to whom I have not even ventured to allude, but about
whom I should like to say just a few words by way of conclusion.

Mr. George Moore, in his Avowals, says that woman ' excels in
detail, but never attains synthesis, not being herself synthesic ' (sic) ;
and, furthermore, that ' it were well that the fact were fully recognised
that the presence of women in art is waste and disappointment.'

Not for worlds would I enter into controversy with Mr. George
Moore, feeling sure that I should be worsted, and fearing that then
he might call me bad names — ' small, weakly creature, ridiculously
shapen, &c. &c.,' as upon p. 328 of the March number of the Pall
Mall Magazine — or declare, perhaps, that I cooked * inadequately ' —
a reproach that would really strike home, since one cannot help regard-
ing cooking (adequately or 'inadequately'), even in these enlightened
days, as rather more of a woman's legitimate vocation than Art or
Literature. What I would venture to say, however, is that when we

140 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

take into consideration her limitations — the very limitations alluded
to by Mr. George Moore — it has always struck me that, when a woman
is impelled to depart from her natural mission — the mission of cooking
* inadequately,' let us say — and to plunge into pathways which lead
only to * waste and disappointment,' her ' call ' must be much more
definite and imperative than the 'inspiration' of a man, although,
according to Mr. George Moore, the result is always so unsatisfactory.

A man, fresh from a successful career at one of our great Universi-
ties, the swing and rhythm of Greek and Latin verses still ringing in
his ears, and imbued, it may be, with the works of the master- singers
of antiquity, finds little difficulty, even if he be not a truly inspired
poet, in tossing ofi couplet or epigram, if only with the object of
killing time upon a wet day, or when, perhaps, there is nothing
else to kill with rod or gun, and so may be induced to write very
respectable derivative verse merely from a feeling of ennui. He has
striven, perhaps, when he was at Oxford, for the ' Newdigate ' ;
possibly he may even have obtained it. This is enough to stimulate
any literary ambition. Why should not the author of Ravenna
aspire to the same honours that were showered, eventually, upon the
head of the author of Timbnctoo, seeing that the two prize poems are
' much of a muchness ' as regards their intrinsic value ?

But it is altogether different with a woman. Ten to one that,
with a few noteworthy exceptions, she knows little or nothing of the
immortal poets of antiquity, and has never breathed, even in fancy,
the stimulating atmosphere, or trod

. . . the thymy pasture -lands
Of high Parnassus.

Even when she is not a professional cook or mere household drudge,
compelled to pore over weekly accounts or darn the holes in the
family linen, she has so many other ways of profitably passing her
time, so many urgent demands upon her sympathy and attention,
particularly when she is blessed, or encumbered, with noisy human
offspring ! The ' inspiration ' must be a very potent one which can
induce her to neglect her so-called ' duties,' even her so-called * plea-
sures,' sometimes, in order that she may be able to satisfy her so-
called ' poetic ' yearnings. She need never write, at any rate, simply
from a feeling of ennui.

And yet how decently our female poets have acquitted themselves
in the glorious reign which has but recently come to a close ! (In the
face of our stern critic I dare use no more enthusiastic terms.) From
Mrs. Browning (the ' hen-bird, singing to its mate,' of Mr. George
Moore, and to whom my remarks about a defective classical education
do not, of course, apply) to the refined and graceful author of Opals,
there is not much to complain of in the quality or finish of their
work.

1904 'ENFANTS TROUVES' OF LITERATURE 141

Daphnis and Chloe, with other impossible shepherds and shep-
herdesses of the past, have almost entirely disappeared from our
midst, together with the paste-board flocks of an artificial Arcadia
(though we may, perhaps, purchase the history of their pastoral loves
* traduit du Grec par M. Amiot et un anonyms, for the sake of its
binding by Derome, or its petits pieds ' inventts et peints par la main
de S. A. R. Philippe Due d 'Orleans, Regent de France*). But that the
more subtle and imperishable Hellenic influences still survive — influ-
ences which inspired Homer and Hesiod long before the plague of
Egyptian myths and fables — is made apparent whenever we turn to
the writings of the greatest of our living bards, and to these the more
cultivated of our modern female poets have been by no means insensible.
Not to mention the ' hen-bird singing to its mate,' the late Jean Inge-
low, to whom we are indebted for that fine poem The High Tide upon
the Coast of Lincolnshire, is also the author of Persephone, with its
haunting musical refrain ; Mrs. Pfeiffer, Mrs. Meynell. Miss Mary
Robinson (who, I am told, prefers still to be known by the maiden
name in which she achieved her first triumphs), have all gone to the
fountain-head for their inspiration, whilst I have often thought how
proud and pleased ' the great god Pan ' might well have been,
Down in the reeds by the river,

could he have only foreseen that, even in these far-off, practical days
of ' bike ' and * motor,' he would find an enthusiastic admirer and
apologist in the charming Lady Margaret Sackville !

And yet Mr. George Moore says that we are not ' synthesic,' and,
what is more, that we can never become so ! ... Being, unfortunately,
a woman myself, and knowing all our little ways, I will go a step
further than Mr. George Moore, and wager that comparatively few
of us are even aware of the derivation or correct significance of the
term. But then this is just what makes me so particularly proud of
my sex, although it is one that has been imposed upon me without
the asking. We can make our omelets without eggs, and our bricks
without straw, and the omelets are really quite eatable, and the bricks
tolerably substantial, for all that. This is our own precious secret,
a ' woman's privilege,' and that it should make some people rather
provoked with us I can perfectly well understand.

MARY MONTGOMERIE CURRIE.

142 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS AND THE
PRESENT WAR

THE present war has already been fruitful in novel questions of inter-
national law. A few of the many special questions which have
arisen in consequence of the changed conditions of modern warfare
I propose discussing. But before doing so I touch upon some of the
larger aspects of this war, interesting to the jurist and likely to
reappear in the future. One of them is the change to be noted in
the policy of neutrals in regard to the action of belligerents at sea : a
change in a movement which has long been going on. and an un-
expected result or concomitant of the growth of large armaments.
For some years the development of maritime international law pro-
ceeded along one line. The supremacy of the Navy of this country
was either taken for granted as natural in view of its possessions
and dependence for food upon foreign supplies, or the day when this
supremacy was to be overthrown was regarded as distant and un-
certain. The other chief States of the world, possessing great armies,
were resigned, for a time at least, to England's predominance at sea.
In these circumstances the laws of war at sea were moulded by two
forces : England pressing hard and exaggerating the rights of belliger-
ents, while other Powers were the champions of the rights of neutrals.
They favoured ' free ships making free goods.' They were jealous of
the exercise of the right of search ; France carrying that jealousy to
the point of suffering for many years the slave trade to flourish in
certain waters rather than British cruisers should exercise this right,
and again in 1887 declining to be a party to the much-needed con-
vention for the suppression of the sale of liquor among North Sea
fishermen by the keepers of floating public-houses, rather than
sanction ' a derogation of the fundamental principles of our public
maritime law.' l Those Powers refused to recognise cruiser blockades,
or blockades of which there has been no notification. They were,
on the whole, though with oscillations in practice, in favour of a strict
limitation of contraband to articles directly of use in war as against
the comprehensive conception recognised by England. If there did

1 Report of Commission of Chamber of Deputies, 1892.

1904 QUESTIONS ON THE PRESENT WAR 143

not always exist in form an armed neutrality, there was a standing
array of interests on the side of neutrals. There was a cloud of writers
of the stamp of Dupuis and Hautefeuille who denounced the egotism
and tyranny of England. On the whole, until the latter half of lasj;
century the belligerents had the best of it. There was some truth in
M. Dupuis's remark : ' Dans le compromis que le droit des gens
tend a realiser entre les interets contradictoires des belligerants et des
neutres, le balance risque fort de pencher toujours quelque peu du
cote des premiers.' 2

But from 1856, when England surrendered one of the sharpest of
her weapons, there was a shrinkage in belligerent rights. They were
asserted, it is true, with somewhat of the old force, though in new
forms, in 1861-64 by the United States. But, on the whole, since that
time the disposition has been to insist that, peace being the normal
order of things, the interests of neutrals should prevail in a conflict
with those of belligerents ; that, for example, the intercourse between
nations by mail steamers and otherwise should be little obstructed ;
that only munitions of war and the like should be treated as contra-
band ; and that blockades should be respected only if they were strictly
efficacious. It would seem, however, as if there was a recovery in
belligerent rights. Perhaps that is only the inevitable outcome of a
naval war ; belligerents using every weapon in their power, and
neutrals not being organised or pressing collectively with equal spirit
and zeal their interests. Perhaps it is a consequence or natural con-
comitant of great armaments. Several States possessing, or aspiring
to possess, powerful navies able to cope, single-handed or jointly, with
any fleet ; the supremacy at sea of any Power being regarded as
dangerous ; the value of ' sea power ' as a factor in warfare realised as
it never was before, there is a rise in belligerent rights ; a reluctance
to propose or assent to any declaration which may fetter the action
of the States which have not hitherto possessed maritime power, but
which may one day acquire it. If I am not misinformed, more than
one Government has, on the advice of its experts, refrained from
speaking distinctly as to recent acts which on the face of them
seemed to conflict with the plain interests of neutrals. On the outlook
for what is to their advantage, they do not know what it may prove
to be. There is reluctance to do anything which might hinder
Governments in the event of war doing all that expediency may in
unforeseen circumstances dictate as to wireless telegraphy or sub-
marine cables. At the opening of this century there seems to be
what there was at the beginning of last century, an exaggeration of
maritime belligerent rights ; with this difference — it is an exaggeration
all round. :

I note a second peculiarity of this war, and one which has already
produced much perplexity and confusion and with far-extending con-
2 R. G, do Droit International, 1903, p. 342.

144 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

sequences. Usually belligerents fight on belligerents' soil. If they
make war on the soil of neutrals, they in effect make war on the latter,
or give cause for the latter doing so. The very basis of international
law is the assumption that each nation is master in its own house,
that its territory is to be respected. But in the present contest this
is ignored; all is confusion ; it is hard to make out who are bellige-
rents and what is neutral soil. It is true that, with spheres of in-
fluence, protectorates and suzerainties, and military occupations,
with such anomalies as the administration of Cyprus, Egypt, and
Bosnia, ideas on this point are not as clear as they once were. We
have seen of late so much interference by strong States in the
affairs of the weak in the name of European concert that one might
at times fancy the days of the Congress of Vienna and the ' European
police ' then exercised over the weak had returned. Things were
topsy-turvy in China when the Allies in 1900-1, declaring that they
were not at war with her, killed her soldiers and occupied her capital.
Manchuria, which is occupied by Russia, is still an integral part of
the Chinese Empire. Yet it is treated in many ways as if it were not
occupied militarily but actually annexed. Its inhabitants, Chinese
subjects, are compelled to guard the Siberian railways. Korea has
been alternately a protectorate of Japan and China. Nominally there
subsisted a treaty by which Japan renounced its sovereign rights and
declared Korea to be a sovereign State, the King subsequently pro-
claiming himself Emperor in manifestation of his independence.
Korea, probably under pressure, has since the war concluded a con-
vention with Japan : a strange incident in a war avowedly begun
for the securing of the independence of the former. Instead of con-
forming, as in theory might have been expected, to the articles in the
Hague Convention relating to military occupation, both Powers have
treated Korea from the outset very much as if it were belligerent
soil. Nor is it satisfactory to say ' Korea is outside the region of
international law.' That simplifies the problems here touched, but only
by ignoring the difficulties. Nice questions of private law will arise
in these circumstances. Suppose that munitions of war were sent to
Seoul ; may they be lawfully seized as contraband, an essential of
which is that they are going directly or eventually to a hostile
destination ? Would a prize court condemn them, and neutrals
acquiesce in such a decision ? It is probable that courts would
look, as is their inclination nowadays, to the actual condition of
things, and have regard to the State which in fact controlled the
situation, without reference to the titular sovereign Power. But
what is happening there opens up prospects prejudicial to smaller
States. ' Buffer States ' in particular are likely to have a bad time of
it in future wars. The assumption of the equality of the States of
the world, always a fiction, promises to become an absurdity.

I note a further characteristic of this war : a set of facts lying

1904 QUESTIONS ON THE PRESENT WAR 145

perhaps outside the domain of international law, but affecting some of
its problems. Hitherto, at the opening of almost every war, whether
the parties to it were civilised or not, it has unconsciously been deemed
necessary to resort to an artifice or expedient in order to create (if
I may say so) the sort of atmosphere in which two nations of ordinary
humanity can contemplate in calmness or without remorse the suffer-
ings inflicted upon an adversary by war — that monster, to quote
Bossuet's words, ' le plus cruel que 1'enfer a jamais vomi pour la
mine des hommes.' Only, it would seem, when racial hatred had
been thus roused could the work be done with satisfaction. And so
it has often been the self-imposed mission of a certain class of writers
to spread and foster the notion that the people opposed to their own
were cruel, or barbarous, or repulsive in their habits, or somehow odious.
Almost regularly at the opening of almost every war there has been
a flight of such calumnies ; the lie patriotic being the necessary con-
comitant of a declaration of hostilities. It is matter of history that
men of genius have stooped to this ignoble traffic in slander. It is
a lasting regret to the admirers of Mommsen that he penned an epistle
containing insults to the French people in their bitter hour, and that
there came from Paris retorts equally calumnious. And as war has
gone on, there has generally been developed greed for stories, for the
most part unsupported by credible evidence, to the prejudice of the
foe and about his treachery and his cruelty. Now, so far, there has
been little or nothing of the kind. Both sides recognise the virtues
of their opponents. They speak of their bravery and their kindness
to the wounded ; and there have been fewer allegations of abuse of
the white flag than was ever probably known.

What will be the outcome of this ? These good signs may dis-
appear if the business drags on ; but it is a new factor in war that the
spurious and artificial racial hatred which has almost always accom-
panied it is absent at the beginning. Not more remarkable is the
swift assimilation by Japan of the resources of military science than
the assimilation, rapid and complete, of the best traditions, the
courtesies and amenities of European warfare. Experience shows
that if hostilities are long continued, passions kept in check at last
break loose ; the vanquished are irritated and desperate ; the victors
become impatient at resistance unreasonably continued. But, so far
as things have gone, one may say that a non-Christian State has set an
example to Christian nations in the conduct of war (as far as it is
possible) on the lines of civilisation. The superior prestige of the
West for humanity is gone. Touches of humanity and sympathy,
never wanting in war, have abounded. The Japanese have tended
their wounded adversaries, and have resorted to no shabby subter-
fuges ; and on the death of Admiral Makaroff they paid the tribute
of brave men to a fallen foe. They have paid for what they have
taken. They have made friends of the population in which they
VOL. LVI — No. 329 L

146 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

moved. Already the ring of European nations whose consent has
made international law is broken in upon by the admission of Turkey
and Japan. International law cannot be quite what it was if it
henceforth expresses the consent of powerful Asiatic non-Christian
States as well as of European nations.

The last general remark to be made is this : In view of the swift
fate of the Petropaulovsk and Japanese transports — hundreds of men
destroyed as if by an earthquake or a volcanic outburst such as that
of Mount Pelee — is there any limit in modern warfare to the use of
destructive agencies which chemistry may devise, provided they are
effective ? The committee which, in 1847, rejected Lord Dundonald's
scheme for destroying by poisonous gases or other agencies whole
armies and garrisons, did so mainly on the ground of humanity;
it did not ' accord with the feelings and principles of civilised warfare/
Would a military committee of to-day have the same scruples ? The
Duke of Wellington's objection to the scheme was ' Two can play at
that game.' Lord Dundonald's retort, ' Yes, but the first of the two.
wins,' might be deemed convincing. With torpedoes and submarine
mines regarded as part of * good war,' it seems almost squeamish to*
stop at anything. All the Powers at the Hague except the United
States were against the use of shells containing asphyxiating gases.
But there was weight in Admiral Mahan's contention ' that it was
illogical and not demonstratively humane to be tender about
asphyxiating men with gas when all were prepared to admit that it
was allowable to blow the bottom out of an ironclad at midnight,
throwing four or five hundred men into the sea to be choked by water,
with scarcely the smallest chance of escape.' The compromise which
the usages of war have made between what was allowable and what
was not was never quite reasonable ; it differs capriciously as to land
and sea ; it does not rest on any real ethical distinction, but is the
outcome of historical accidents and traditions ; a strange mixture of
caste and general morality ; it now seems to be hopelessly absurd.

Of the special questions which have pressed to the front since last
February, few are yet sufficiently ripe for speaking positively about
them. What Colonel Lonsdale Hale calls ' the fog of war ' hangs thick
over them, and will not completely rise until it is over. One obscure
point concerns neutrals. If half of what is stated with respect to
the sale of vessels or munitions of war taking place in Germany and
Chili be true, there will be a serious case for compensation. To be
sure, so far the mercantile marine of Japan has not suffered much
from these purchases, if real. But if cruisers traceable to German
ports are fitted out or sold to Russia, it would require little ingenuity
to figure out a heavy claim for losses and expenses attributable to
these vessels. History seems to show that the result of such demands
against neutrals depends on the measure of military success of the
belligerent. The victor in war has a way of succeeding in arbitrations.
At the outset of hostilities was raised a delicate question, too

lightly settled by many who professed to speak in the name of inter-
national law. A formal declaration is not needed to constitute a
state of war, with all the results to neutrals and belligerents ; 3 and in
modern times such a declaration has been rather the exception than
the rule. With actual hostilities at once arise all the rights and
duties of belligerents and neutrals. But this does not completely
dispose of the question which has arisen, or justify every attack by
surprise. International law offers no excuse for such acts as the
invasion of the Palatinate by Louis XIV., or of Silesia by Frederick
the Great, without warning, formal or otherwise. An attack
without intimating, directly or indirectly, that a refusal of demands
is to be followed by war, is criminal in the forum of the jurist as it is
according to the consciences of plain men. Some clear indication of
what is the alternative to denial of demands is admitted to be essential
to loyal warfare. About the 5th of February the Japanese Government,
after a long delay of which they had apparently good cause to com-
plain, recalled their Ambassador, and notified interruption of diplo-
matic relations — a state of things which is not, of course, neeessarily
equivalent to a state of war, and has not always been followed by it.
On the night of the 8th or 9th Admiral Togo torpedoed the Russian
vessels at Port Arthur. It was an attack of surprise. Was it a
treacherous and disloyal act ? The question must be put with the
knowledge that a nation which is patient may be duped ; that the
first blow counts much ; and that under cover of continuing negotia-
tion a country unprepared might deprive another better equipped of
its advantages. But it is a nice question whether the negotiations
had reached on the 8th or 9th of February a point at which discussion
had been abandoned, and both sides had accepted the arbitrament of
.battle. I will only say that the recent precedent is of evil omen, and
that it is to be feared that in future we may see blows struck, not
merely without formal notice, but while diplomatists are still debating.
I am not expressing an opinion on the particular act in saying that
there has been an unfortunate — perhaps inevitable — retrogression.
Since 1870 there has been a tendency to abide by the old rule, which
.regarded a war without a declaration or ultimatum as disloyal. For
example, notice was given by Montenegro to Turkey in 1876, by
Russia to Turkey in 1878, and by the United States to Spain in 1898.
In the absence of trustworthy information there is little use dis-
cussing the charge against the Russians of sowing at haphazard mines
in the open sea to the peril of neutral shippers. The facts are alto-
gether controverted, and we must wait until the reports of the com-
manders of neutral fleets are forthcoming. The probability is that

3 This is not universally admitted. M. Fillet (Les Lois Actttelles de la Guerre,
1. 64) says : — ' Une guerre sans declaration n'est pas une guerre loyale.' See Clunet,
1904, 257. Writing in La Libre Parole with reference to the outbreak of hostilities,
M. Drumont says :— ' Le droit international a ve"cu ! '

L 2

148 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY July

such mines were placed in the waters contiguous to Port Arthur, and
in bad weather drifted out to sea ; which happened to the Russian
mines laid in the Baltic in 1856 ; 4 an accident which might give rise to
claims for compensation by injured neutrals, just as might injuries
done by stray shots or by torpedoes or submarine boats.

Of the special questions which this war has brought forward the
most perplexing is that of wireless telegraphy. It confronts inter-
national lawyers before they have made up their minds what to say
as to the rights and duties of belligerents in regard to submarine cables.
Their position in time of war has been more than once discussed at
international conferences. But no rules have so far been generally
adopted by nations. The Cable Conference of 1884 declined to go
into the matter ; Article 15 of the Convention says : ' II est bien
entendu que les stipulations de la presente convention ne portent
aucune atteinte a la liberte d'action des belligerants.' Apart from the
difficulties inherent in adapting old rules to this new mode of com-
munication, a powerful instrument of war as well as a servant of
peace, there is another in the disposition to regard the matter as if it
were a question of England against the rest of the world. She possesses
or controls a large part of the existing cables ; many of them pass
through or touch her territory ; and there is force in the contention
that : ' Dans 1'etat actuel des communications telegraphiques le monde
entier est le tributaire de la Grande Bretagne, car c'est a Londres
qu'aboutissent la plupart des fils qui relient PEurope aux autres
Continents.' 5

The Institut de Droit International in 1879 adopted a resolution
that in time of war cables connecting neutral countries were inviolable.
At its meeting in Brussels the Institut passed a series of resolutions
which probably express the general understanding as to what is right
and proper. After reaffirming the inviolability of cables connecting
neutral territories, the Institut added :

Le cable reliant les territoires de deux belligerants ou deux parties du terri-

4 See Earp's Sir Charles Napier's Campaign in the Baltic, pp. 132, 165, 276.

* B. G. de Droit International, 1901, p. 682. I quote for what it is worth the
statement of M. Bey : ' En 1870, la notification de la declaration de guerre n'est
transmise a 1'escadre d'extreme-Orient qu'apres avoir et6 communique'e aux navires de
commerce allemands a ce moment dans les ports chinois. Lors de la campagne du
Tonkin, en 1885, 1'Angleterre se procure la clef du chiffre employ^ par le Gouverne-
ment francais, et prend avant celui-ci connaissance des de"p£ches de 1'Amiral Courbet ;
de m£me, en 1893, les instructions envoyees & 1'Amiral Humann au conflit franco-
Siamois sont communiquees au Foreign Office par les compagnies anglaises chargees
de les transmettre. En 1888, un telegramme du Gouvernement du Congo au Hoi des
Beiges au sujet de 1'exp^dition Stanley-Emin Pacha est connu par la presse anglaise
avant d'etre parvenu a destination ; il en est de meme du succes de ['expedition du
General Duchesne a Madagascar en 1895. Enfin, en 1894, la mort du Sultan du
Maroc, susceptible d'entrainer de graves complications, est dissimule'e vingt-quatre
heures aux Gouvernements inte"resses pendant que le Ministre d'Angleterre a Tanger,
pour correspondre avec le Foreign Office, occupe pendant une nuit entiere le cable
anglais, qui seul reliait alora le Maroc au reste du monde." (R. G. de Droit Inter-
national, 1901, p. 683.)

1904 QUESTIONS ON THE PEE SENT WAR 149

toire d'un des belligerants peut etre coupe partout, excepte dans la mer territoriale
et dans les eaux neutralisees dependant d'un territoire neutre.

Le cable reliant un territoire neutre au territoire d'un des belligerants ne
pent en aucun cas etre coupe dans la mer territoriale ou dans les eaux neutra-
lisees dependant d'un territoire neutre. En haute mer, ce cable ne peut etre
coupe que s'il y a blocus effectif et dans les limites de la ligne du blocus, sauf re-
tablissement du cable dans le plus bref delai possible. Ce cable peut toujours
etre coupe sur le territoire et dans la mer territoriale dependant d'un territoire
ennemi jusqu'aune distance de troismilles marins de la baisse de basse-mare'e.

Few of those who discuss the subject dwell sufficiently upon the
differences between contraband or quasi-contraband and vessels
conveying the same and telegrams and submarine cables. Telegraphic
communications may be called quasi-contraband. But you do not
seize a vessel because it may be carrying contraband ; you do not
destroy it if it does ; you do not confiscate it if the owner has acted
innocently. Transmitting messages to belligerents may be likened to
breaking a blockade. But the analogy is faint. You do not destroy
vessels which may break it; you do not capture them, unless the
blockade is effective. In a maritime war a cable is something sui
generis. A belligerent cannot exercise over it any right similar to that
of search ; it may be an instrument of war much more important than
a cargo of contraband or a blockade-runner ; the fact to be recognised
is that he may be safe only if he cuts it. The hesitation of States
unable to foresee circumstances in which interruption to cable com-
munications might be vital to them is natural. Looking to what may
hang upon telegraphic communication — transports intercepted, a fleet
destroyed, the fate of a campaign [affected — it is too much to expect
belligerents always to keep within the four corners of the rules which
I have quoted. There will be circumstances, it may be anticipated, in
which they will not suffer, if they can help it, a telegraphic cable, no
matter who is the owner or what are its termini, to be used to their
detriment. To whatever rules they assent will probably be added
the sacramental formula, ' So far as circumstances permit.'

I put less trust in rules which there may be an irresistible temptation
to break or evade than in a proper system of compensation by belli-
gerents not only for structural injuries, but loss of traffic, meted out
by a tribunal possessing general confidence. In legal development,
when a new principle has not yet been evolved, and when, in the
absence of accepted rules, each case depends on its peculiar cir-
cumstances, compensation is, as here, the only possible alleviation
of hardships. At present, however, there are no settled ideas or
practice as to such compensation. The Americans, in their war with
Spain, cut the cable of the Eastern Extension Company from Hong-
Kong to Manila at the shore end. The company claimed compensa-
tion for Admiral Dewey's act of war. English counsel gave an
opinion favourable to the claim of the company for indemnity to the
extent of the amount expended on repairing the cable cut at Manila.
The Attorney-General of tin United States advised his Government

150 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

that the claim was not maintainable, on the ground that the ' property
of a neutral permanently situated within the territory of our enemy
is, from its situation alone, liable to damage from the lawful 'operations
of war, which this cutting is conceded to have been, as no compensa-
tion is due for such damage. . . . That is a rule applying to property
of a neutral which he has placed within the territory of our enemy,
which property our necessary military operations damage or destroy.
It takes no account of the character of the property, but only of its
location. ... It argues nothing that cables have not heretofore been
the subject of any discussion of this rule. The same might be said
of many kinds of property, either because they happened not to be
injured, or because the rule was so well understood that a discussion
was deemed superfluous. ... It is said that the whole utility of the
cable is destroyed for many miles by a cutting within territorial
waters; in other words, that the damage extends outside of terri-
torial waters. But is this true ? Undoubtedly the interruption of
traffic over it does or may extend for many miles ; but the interrup-
tion of traffic is not the basis of the claim. When repaired, it was
repaired, as it had been cut, within territorial waters, and was then the
same as before the injury. It was possible to take up the outer end
and operate the cable to Hong-Kong from the time it was cut ; and it was
the sealing of the cable at Hong-Kong, and not the cutting, which pre-
vented this from being done. . . . The obvious difference between a cut-
ting within and a cutting without territorial waters, however it may be
equally troublesome to the owner, goes to the foundation of the rule au-
thorising the destruction of property because it is within the territory.' 6

These reasons are highly technical, and are not convincing. They
do not accord with the equity of plain men. The property of an
innocent subject of a neutral State — property which he could not
remove when war broke out — had been injured. The whole line
from Hong-Kong to Manila was rendered for a time useless to the
company. It is conceived that a proper system of compensation
should provide for such cases and others pretty certain to arise in
maritime warfare. It is somewhat a waste of time and ingenuity,
I fear, to attempt to determine beforehand with great detail the precise
limits of action to which in this matter belligerents may be expected to
conform. More pressing is the preparation of a carefully thought-out
scheme of compensation.

The reluctance to speak positively as to the use by neutrals on
the high seas or on neutral territory of wireless telegraphy is intelli-
gible. Its utility in warfare has yet to be determined. It was absurd
to describe, in the language of the Russian note, the telegraphists on
board the Haimun as ' spies ' — a term defined in every military manual.7

6 Opinions of Attorney-Generals, xxii. p. 315. I gather from the Secretary of the
Company that the claim is still under consideration.

7 See Bismarck's famous note of November 19, 1870, as to the treatment of
aeronauts in time of war.

1904 QUESTIONS ON THE PRESENT WAR 151

If there is any doubt as to its meaning, it arises from the
modern tendency to greater leniency towards a class of men per-
forming duties which every soldier considers honourable. In these
days Major Andre might not have been executed. He probably
would not have experienced the humiliation of being hanged.
Wireless apparatus on shipboard could not by any stretch of reason
be classed, according to the threat in the Russian note, as contra-
band ; every requisite is absent. Nor is there a recognised doctrine
according to which neutrals may be excluded from ' the sphere of
military operations ' outside the belligerents' territory — a somewhat
novel phrase covering a novel doctrine. But all cause for complaint
by belligerents is not removed by vessels with wireless telegraphy
keeping outside the three-mile line. That for some purposes is a
sufficient zone of safety, while it is not so for others ; it is a popular
error that international law draws a hard-and-fast line as to this.
Operation by wireless telegraphy might be on such a scale and in
such circumstances as to amount to assisting the enemy. It would
be unreasonable to expect a belligerent to look on while a vessel
•equipped with this apparatus cruised seven or eight miles off shore,
collecting military information and transmitting it, directly or cir-
cuitously, to the other belligerent ; this might be lending aid, and of
a most valuable kind, to the enemy. What is at present a small
matter might conceivably become by some future development and
organisation so serious as to be a breach of neutrality and an offence
to be taken cognisance of in an amendment to Section 8 (4) of the
Foreign Enlistment Act. What is to be insisted upon as to this and
many other points which have arisen in this war is that there is no
•consensus of nations as to them, and that no one is entitled to say,
* International law condemns this.' That holds good even of such a
matter as what is contraband by the law of nations.

One minor matter of some novelty may be mentioned. It is a
nice question of casuistry how far it is legitimate to set troops of
•wholly different degrees of civilisation to fight against each other ;
and it is a question as to which opinion is apt to be inconsistent
The employment of black troops by the United States was applauded
by those who, borrowing Chatham's invectives against the use of the
Red Indians in war, denounced the employment of the>Turcos in
1870. The Russian Government appear to have done something
which is almost as questionable as the conduct of the French. Certain
•of the convicts detained in the Island of Sakhalin — a particularly
bad class of criminals — are, it is said, to be used as soldiers ; a revival
of a practice not known, so far as I am aware, since in France in
1793 was formed a legion of formats. These recruits are to be em-
ployed on what is akin to police duty. But should the tide of war
roll in their direction, deplorable things may happen ; and in any
case it is an unfortunate precedent.

JOHN MACDONELL.

152 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY July

LAST MONTH

THE Whitsuntide recess, and Ascot, not to speak of the ordinary
gaieties of the season, have interfered to some extent with the course
of politics during the past month. Possibly, also, our politicians have
been glad of any excuse for absenting themselves from the House o£
Commons. At all events, it has hardly been in the Parliamentary
debates that the political interest has centred of late. And yet it is
difficult to recall a time when the political situation was at once more
difficult and more interesting than it is at this moment. The life of
the Ministry and of Parliament seems to hang by a thread. At any
moment it may be cut short. But the thread is a tough one, and
has successfully withstood so many shocks that wise men have given
up speculating upon the precise moment at which it will at last b*
severed. For the mere partisan the situation is quite simple. The
thick-and-thin advocate of the Ministry sees in Mr. Balfour the most
adroit of Parliamentary tacticians, and he looks to him to juggle
successfully, possibly for a couple of years to come, with the succes-
sive difficulties which he has to face. The resolute Liberal, on the
other hand, whilst admitting Mr. Balfour's cleverness, maintains,
first, that the cleverness is not in itself very reputable ; secondly, that,
after all, the Prime Minister is not a free agent, but is compelled to
keep measure to the tune played by Mr. Chamberlain ; and, finally,
that it does not matter a rap with what skill Mr. Balfour glides over
thin ice, so long as public feeling out of doors rises daily and per-
ceptibly against him. These, however, are only the crude outward
features of the situation. Beati possidentes ! No doubt it gives much
comfort to the average Ministerialist to know that his party is still in
possession of power, and that no day for its ejectment has as yet
been fixed. No doubt, also, the sturdy member of the Opposition is-
equally satisfied by the testimony of the by-elections, and the proof
forthcoming on all hands of the grotesque failure of the raging and
tearing agitation which he feared so greatly twelve months ago. But
behind these obvious facts lie others of greater importance, which the:
events of last month have forced into prominence.

1904 LAST MONTH 153

To begin with, it looks, at the moment at which I write, as though
there must be an early end to what has been widely, but not inaccu-
rately, described as the farce of Mr. Balfour's fiscal policy. The
Prime Minister has successfully evaded every attempt made in the
House of Commons to extract from him a frank and intelligible defini-
tion of that policy. He still sits triumphantly upon the fence, and
neither the reproaches of his opponents nor the entreaties of his
friends have caused him to descend from it. But apparently pressure
has been brought to bear upon him from another quarter, and it is
pressure to which he may yet have to yield. The Duke of Devonshire
has been formally ejected from the Presidency of the Liberal Unionist
Association, and his place, we are now told, is to be taken by
Mr. Chamberlain. No one can reasonably object to this step. Mr.
Chamberlain is, without doubt, the most powerful and important
person left in the Liberal Unionist party, and he is certainly entitled
to succeed the Duke in the office of President. But with him are to
be associated as Vice-Presidents two members of the Cabinet, the
Marquis of Lansdowne and the Earl of Selborne. This in itself is a
quite unobjectionable arrangement. But if it be true, as semi-official
announcements declare, that the first step of the reorganised Liberal
Unionist Association will be to pronounce strongly in favour of Mr.
Chamberlain's fiscal policy, it is difficult to see how an acute crisis is
to be avoided in the Ministerial ranks. The Free Traders in those
ranks are hardly likely to accept with equanimity a declaration in
favour of Protection from a body two of whose officials are Cabinet
Ministers of the first rank. The bland assurances which have hitherto
sufficed to avert an open rupture among the majority in the House of
Commons will scarcely carry weight in face of the capture by the
Protectionists not only of the Liberal Unionist organisation, but of
members of the Cabinet so distinguished as Lords Lansdowne and
Selborne. I have never, in these pages, dwelt upon the gossip which
at all times runs riot in the lobbies at Westminster. Most of it is
foolish, and it is generally based upon the slightest of foundations ;
but it is impossible for anyone to close his ears to the rumour which
asserts that this new step on the part of Mr. Chamberlain in the
reorganisation of the Liberal Unionist Association is the result of a
determination on his part to force the running, and to commit, so far
as he can, the whole Ministerial party to his fiscal policy. He has
had to submit to many mortifications of late, and his is by no means
a nature that loves to kiss the rod. It must be bad enough for him to
see election after election resulting in the return of those who are
opposed tooth and nail to his food-tax ; but what must be infinitely
worse is the fact that his own chosen candidates resolutely shrink
from being publicly identified with his policy. The Balfour umbrella,
to revive an illustration of old Gladstonian days, furnishes them with
a shelter of which they eagerly avail themselves — not, apparently,

154 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

with great success so far as electoral results are concerned. It is easy
to understand that this is not a state of things pleasing to the ex-
Colonial Secretary. In his eyes, those who are not for him are against
him, and no one can be surprised if he should have resolved that a
farce which has been somewhat unduly prolonged should be ended
with as little delay as possible. It thus seems not impossible that
before another month has passed over our heads we shall be brought
face to face with a change in the political situation which may alter
many things.

It is not to the current and open events of the past month that
we have to look for real light upon the great political movements of
the time. So far as these events are concerned they are almost wholly
unfavourable to Mr. Chamberlain. The by-elections have proved
once more that the masses of the electors have not only been unaffected
by his strenuous appeals, but are still resolutely opposed to his re-
actionary ideas. Fiscal reform has even, it is said, ceased to be
popular in smart society, where a year ago it was the fashionable cult.
The Cobden centenary celebrations, though they may have had the
defects common to all popular celebrations of the kind, have undoubtedly
shown how strong a hold Cobdenism has secured upon the nation.
Mr. Chamberlain's Tariff Commission, it is true, is still at work, and I
am told by those who ought to know that the new Protectionists
expect much from the result of its labours. But for the present it
conducts its proceedings with a decorous privacy, and the bomb
which it is to launch against Free Trade has still to be fashioned. But
behind the labours of the Cobden Club on one side, and of the Tariff
Commission on the other, the real forces are silently at work ; and
among these none is more potent than the personality of Mr. Chamber-
lain himself. Whatever he may have lost in prestige by his abortive
agitation in the country, he has certainly not lost the unique power
which he wields within the Ministerial ranks in Parliament. The
Government depends for its continued existence upon his support,
and though it is natural to conclude that he would be loth to pass
sentence of death upon an Administration of which his son is a member,
no outsider can venture to predict when the psychological moment
may arrive when he will decide that, for the benefit of his cause, the
curtain ought to be rung down upon the present act in the drama.
His speech at the City dinner to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
suggests that he has already framed a new plan of campaign, and that
his present idea is to ask the country for its confidence on the strength
of his assumed ability to provide it with new sources of revenue, the
burden of which will fall, not upon us, but upon the stranger outside
our gates. That we shall have to discover new sources of revenue,
if our trade does not improve and there is to be no reduction of our
expenditure, is only too certain ; but that we are in a position to
compel other people to provide us with the money we need is a pro-

1904 LAST MONTH 155

position that Mr. Chamberlain will find it somewhat difficult to induce
the country to accept. Even Mr. Gladstone, as we know, failed
signally on the one occasion on which he made an appeal to the mer-
cenary instincts of the electors, and in matters of finance Mr. Chamber-
lain's warmest admirer will admit that he is not Mr. Gladstone. Still,
the fact remains that we seem to be entering upon a new phase of the
great controversy, a phase in which our unbridled expenditure and
the trade depression so largely due to the losses of the South African
war will be claimed as assets by the fiscal reformers. It is not impos-
sible that one of the consequences of this change of tactics will be an
earlier dissolution than many seem to anticipate.

Rumour — one must again apologise for referring to so very doubtful
an authority — has for months past informed the world that Mr.
Chamberlain does not look for a Ministerial victory at the next
General Election. In this instance the rumour is not, I believe,
unfounded. What Mr. Chamberlain anticipates is a Liberal majority
of somewhat uncertain extent. The Opposition is then to come into
power, and is to remain in office for a very limited period, not ex-
ceeding two years. This is the forecast of one who is both a shrewd
judge and a pronounced adversary of the Liberal party. This being
the case, it cannot be presumptuous to deal with the prospects of
Liberalism, more especially since, during the last month, some light
has been thrown upon those prospects by Lord Rosebery's speech at
the Queen's Hall. I need not discuss that speech at length. What-
ever else may be said about it, it was at least the speech of one who,
whatever may be the number of his followers, undoubtedly spoke as
a leader. His survey of the general situation was wide and luminous,
and even those Liberals who have the least sympathy with his opinions
upon some subjects would be very ill-advised if they failed to benefit
by it, and by the general tenor of the advice which he gave them.
But the great merit of Lord Rosebery's declaration was the emphasis
with which it drew attention to that which is, after all, the crux of
the situation, so far as Liberalism is concerned. The party must,
before long, make its great appeal to the electors. It has enough, and
more than enough, in the Ministerial blunders of the last nine years
upon which to found its claim to a vote of confidence from the public.
The old khaki cry is dead ; how completely dead it is was proved by
the Market Harborough election, in which a typical representative of
those whom their opponents were wont to describe as pro-Boers
secured a much larger majority than any Liberal had ever before
obtained in the constituency. But if this cry is dead, another, and
a still more formidable one, remains. What is to be the policy of a
Liberal Government, supposing one to be formed as the result of the
General Election, with regard to Ireland ? Upon some points there
need be no hesitation in answering this question. Administrative
reform, sorely needed in all parts of the United Kingdom, is nowhere

156 TEE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

needed so urgently as in Ireland. Upon that point the Liberal party
in all its branches is united. The sympathetic treatment of all reason-
able Irish demands with a view to giving the country, so far as justice
permits, the government which it desires, and without which it will
never be content, is another question upon which there is but one
opinion in the ranks of Liberalism. But are the Liberals, if they
should return to power, to take up the thread broken in 1894, and to
seek to revive that Home Rule legislation which they pursued with so
much ardour, and at so great a cost to themselves, during the latest
years of the Gladstonian regime ? This was really the question dis-
cussed briefly but clearly by Lord Rosebery in the Queen's Hall
speech. There is no need to say how he dealt with it. He declared
plainly that the next Parliament, if it had a Liberal majority, neither
could nor would deal with the question of Home Rule. His views
are those which I feel convinced are held by the overwhelming majority
of Liberals, certainly by all who care to look the facts in the face.
We cannot revive the passionate pilgrimage of the years between
1885 and 1894 ; and if we could, there is no reason to suppose that
public opinion in Great Britain has changed to such an extent as to
support a renewed Home Rule policy, or that the House of Lords has
repented of its rejection of Mr. Gladstone's scheme. To seek to
revive that scheme under present conditions would be an act of
suicide on the part of the Liberal leaders. They have work of their
own to do for Great Britain and the Empire as a whole, more important
and more pressing than anything they can hope to do in the next
Parliament for Ireland. Mr. Birrell, who, as President of the National
Liberal Federation, speaks with authority, has been almost as emphatic
in proclaiming this truth as Lord Rosebery himself. The misfortune
is that there are still many Liberals who, if they could, would revive
the ten-year-old shibboleth, and seek to burden themselves with it,
to the detriment of their party and their cause. For those who feel
so strongly on this subject that they insist upon being Home Rulers
and nothing else, one can only feel sincere respect, even though their
worldly wisdom may not be very obvious. But the Home Rule cry
has other supporters, who regard it as being not so much the embodi-
ment of a sacred principle as an instrument for electioneering pur-
poses. They believe but faintly in the possibility of securing a
Liberal majority in the next Parliament without the help of the
Irish, and it is their desire to secure the Irish vote that makes them
stick to Home Rule. Naturally, they are furious against Lord Rose-
bery for his distinct refusal to countenance the idea of an alliance
between British Liberals and Irish Nationalists, or the formation of a
Ministry which would depend for its existence upon the support of
the latter. This, as I have said, is the crux of the question with
which the Liberal leaders and the Liberal party have now to deal.
To me it seems that Lord Rosebery spoke both as a statesman and

1904 LAST MONTH 157

a patriot. It would be impossible for the Liberal party to do the
work which now lies before it, work dealing more particularly with
free trade, education, and licensing reform, if it could only carry out
its policy by the aid of the Irish members ; whilst no position could
be more intolerable or more humiliating for any English Ministry
than that of having to rely upon an Irish alliance, unless it were in
& Parliament elected ad hoc for the purpose of dealing with the Irish
question. All this is so obvious that it seems to be a truism, and
yet it is a truism upon which depends the future of Liberalism in the
next House of Commons. To play with the question in any way, or
to try to evade it by means of soothing commonplaces which deceive
nobody, would be to betray the interests not merely of the party, but
of the country. The greatest misfortune that could happen to the
nation as the result of the next General Election would be a condi-
tion of things in which the Irish members would hold the balance of
power. Lord Rosebery's purpose at the Queen's Hall was to point to
the existence of this danger, and to warn his fellow Liberals against
those who would lightly expose themselves to it. He deserves the
thanks not only of Liberals but of the whole country for the courage
with which he has spoken the truth on a delicate and serious question,
without stopping to consider the misconceptions to which such plain-
speaking was certain to subject him.

The Prime Minister referred at least once during last month to
the alleged lists — ' alternative lists,' I think he called them — of the
next Administration which are popularly supposed to be enshrined
in the cabinets of certain prominent members of the Opposition.
Personally, I know nothing even as to the existence of these lists ;
but I do know that a great many people believe that they are actually
in being, and they undoubtedly form a topic which seems to interest
all classes of politicians. The forming of imaginary Cabinets is always
a fascinating amusement, especially to those who are not too far off
the sacred circle to feel a personal interest in the game. But in the
case of the next Liberal Government so much depends upon the choice
of Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary that, until the allotment of
these posts has been definitely settled, no good can be done by specula-
tion as to minor appointments. That there are alternative Govern-
ments ready to step into the shoes of Mr. Balfour and his colleagues
in the present Ministry is certain ; and Liberals, at all events, believe
universally that no new Government, whatever might be its general
character, could possibly be worse than the present one, or could
blunder so conspicuously and so constantly as the oft-transformed
Cabinet of 1895 has done. But what is to be the special brand of
Liberalism that the next Ministry will represent ? There are writers
in the Press and a few speakers on the platform who insist that it
must be openly and strenuously anti-Imperialist in tone, and must
renounce not only the jingoism of the khaki days, but the ' sane

158 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

Imperialism ' of the Liberal League. There are others who hold that
even the least infusion of the ' Little England ' spirit into the new
Government would certainly discredit it, and probably bring about
its destruction well within the brief term of life which Mr. Chamber-
lain and his friends have assigned to it. The truth, of course, lies
between these two extremes. The policy of ostracism for which a few
extreme Radical writers, possessed of greater fluency than influence,
are always clamouring, is one that under present conditions the Liberal
party is certainly not in a position to adopt. The next Ministry will
contain the representatives of all the sections into which the Opposition
has been split during its long years of wandering in the wilderness.
But its predominating character can only be decided when it is known
who is to be at its head, who is to hold the Foreign Secretaryship, and
what is to be its attitude towards the Irish question. Until these
points have been settled — and they can hardly be settled before the
General Election has taken place — it is sheer waste of time to speculate
on the contents of those mysterious lists to which Mr. Balfour referred.
The only point that emerges clearly from the turbid sea of speculation
is the fact that, upon whomsoever the duty of forming the next Liberal
Administration may fall, there is no one who is likely to envy him
his task.

The question of the Army and the defensive forces of the country
has been very much in men's minds during the month. The Report
of the Royal Commission upon the Volunteers, with its rather crude
conclusion in favour of conscription, startled everybody, and appar-
ently was most startling to those who in the Press and in Parliament
have long been dallying with the subject in an amateurish fashion.
Seldom has a document of this importance been received with such
general and outspoken condemnation. A couple of days sufficed to
establish the fact that, at the present moment, the nation will not
stand the idea of conscription at any price. The Report of the Com-
mission was blown into the air by a gust of almost universal indignation,
and Ministers made haste to declare that they had no intention of
acting upon its proposals. If, as seems by no means improbable, the
Report was in the nature of a ballon d'essai, sent up on behalf of the
Ministry, it undoubtedly served its purpose, and for some time to
come we are little likely to hear anything further on the subject of
compulsory military service. But there are some who suggested
from the first that, in procuring this declaration of opinion from the
Royal Commission, Ministers were not so much trying to ascertain
the true views of the public with regard to conscription, as seeking
to furnish themselves with a weapon by means of which they could
induce the House of Commons to accept fresh proposals of theirs on
the subject of the Army. It is unfortunately evident that the present
condition of the Army is deplorably bad. Between the havoc wrought
by the war and the still greater mischief caused by Mr. Brodrick's

1904 LAST MONTH 159

alteration of the terms of enlistment, the ranks of our regiments are
being quickly depleted, and it is impossible to find recruits to take
the places of the men who insist upon returning to civil life. The
subject is not one upon which I wish to dwell. Probably the less it
is discussed in public the better. But it is known only too well that
we are within a few months of a crisis in the history of our Army such
as we have never had to face before. Ministers seem to have one
remedy, and one only, for this deplorable state of things. It is the
old remedy of increased expenditure. With the Report of the Volunteer
Commission in their hands, they can go to Parliament and say, ' Here
is a proposal for conscription ; but you will not even look at it ; that
being the case you must face the only alternative, and provide sufficient
money to enable us to compete successfully for our recruits in the open
labour market.' Such, at least, is the explanation which some give of
the origin of this very remarkable Report.

But, in the meantime, what of that great scheme of War Office
reform which was to give us the efficiency in military administration
that we need so badly ? Everybody rejoiced at the business-like
promptitude with which Mr. Arnold-Forster, after his installation in
office, brought the Esher Committee into existence, and we rejoiced
even more gladly when that body turned out its sweeping scheme of
reforms with such unexampled celerity. But months have elapsed
since the historic documents revolutionising our system of Army
administration were given to the world ; it is even months since we
were practically assured by the Secretary for War that the scheme
had been adopted and was in process of being put in force. Where
is it now ? Many wild rumours are current as to its fate, but they
are not rumours that one need pause to examine here. One thing,
however, has happened during the past month that is distinctly
ominous. It was announced that on the 16th of May Mr. Arnold-
Forster would take the House of Commons into his confidence, and
make his eagerly-expected statement with regard to the position of
his great scheme. The spirit of the reformers rose at this announce-
ment, and the prophets of evil, who had been trading on the rumours,
to which I have referred, were correspondingly depressed. But alas !
on the eve of the date mentioned the Prime Minister, in an apologetic
statement worded so curiously that it could not have failed to create
suspicion in the minds of those who heard it, intimated that a mistake
had been made — a mistake the sole responsibility for which rested
with himself — and that Mr. Arnold-Forster would not be in a position
to make his promised speech on the day fixed. Then, indeed, did the
flood of rumour that had been gathering so long burst all bounds ,,
sweeping everything before it. Not merely the loss of the Esher-
Clarke scheme, but even the downfall of the Ministry itself, were
declared by the quidnuncs to be impending ; and tales of a prolonged
fight within the Cabinet, waged with a desperate resolution worthy of

160 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

General Kuroki himself, filled all mouths. Perhaps by the time that
these lines appear in print the truth may have been made manifest.
One hears many versions of it ; but it is no business of mine to purvey
the gossip of the clubs. For the present I am content to note the
fact that as last month drew to a close the hopes both of Army reformers
and of economists seemed to sink to the lowest point at which they
had stood since Mr. Brodrick retired from his throne of thorns in Pall
Mall.

Parliament has been engaged during the month with the Licensing
Bill, and other measures for the most part of secondary importance.
On the Licensing Bill, Ministers have so far held their own, and have
successfully resisted even the attempt, strongly supported on their
own side of the House, to induce them to impose a time limit on their
measure for conferring a practical endowment on the publicans. But
their success in the House of Commons has not followed them into the
country, where public opinion is steadily growing more hostile to the
Bill. The bishops and clergymen of the Church of England have
come forward to protest against it, and popular demonstrations for
the purpose of denouncing it have been held in many of the large
towns throughout England. The demonstrations may not in them-
selves be immediately operative ; but they undoubtedly swell the tide
of resentment against the Government which is growing so steadily in
all quarters. More important, perhaps, than any individual measure
dealt with during the month is the movement within the House of
Commons which has been caused by the systematic attempt of certain
members to deprive the House of its liberty of action, in the interests
of particular parties. Debate, on a motion for the adjournment of
the House, is not, under the rules, permitted on any question with
respect to which a notice of motion is standing on the paper. In itself
there are doubtless good reasons for this rule, but it is deliberately
abused by members who put down what can only be called sham
notices of motion for the purpose of preventing any real debate upon
the questions with which their notices deal. It seems intolerable
that the freedom of Parliament should be curtailed in this matter by
the hacks of parties or the advertisers of their own names. The Prime
Minister has undertaken, at the request of Sir Henry Campbell-Banner-
man, to consider how this scandal may be dealt with. Public respect
for the House of Commons will hardly be increased if it should prove
to be powerless to protect itself from this gross infringement of its
rights.

The 'Dundonald incident,' as it has been called, is one of the
least pleasant features of the history of the month. The Earl of
Dundonald, a soldier of brilliant reputation, was appointed, after the
South African War, General in command of the Canadian Militia.
Recently, in that capacity, he nominated certain persons for com-
missions in one of the regiments of militia. One at least of these

1904 LAST MONTH 161

nominations was rejected by Mr. Fisher, Minister of Agriculture, to
whom the matter was referred by the Minister to whose department
questions connected with the national defence belong. Lord Dun-
donald thought he had reason to believe that Mr. Fisher acted from
motives connected with party politics, and he made a speech on the
subject at a public gathering, in which he protested strongly against
the intrusion of politics into matters of military discipline. There is
no doubt that he committed an indiscretion in taking this action, and
that he showed his failure to appreciate the constitutional laws by
which he, in common with other persons, must be content to be
governed. But his indiscretion was not treated generously or even
leniently by the Dominion Government, whilst Sir Wilfrid Laurier's
reference to this distinguished British soldier as a ' foreigner ' — an
indiscretion, it is true, immediately repented of — leaves a very bad
taste in the mouth. The incident ought to be a lesson to the poli-
ticians who, ignoring the advice of the wise men of the past, are anxious
to anticipate the work of time in cementing a closer relationship
between the Mother Country and the Colonies. Of other incidents
of the month, two which must be noticed in this chronicle are the
assassination of General BobrikofT, the Governor-General of Finland,
by an official of the Finnish Administration who afterwards committed
suicide, and the terrible fire on a pleasure-boat in East River, New
York, by which some 900 lives, chiefly those of children, were lost.
So far as the tragedy at Helsingfors is concerned, public opinion in
this country seems to be divided between our righteous abhorrence
of assassination as a weapon in political warfare, and our indignation
at the harsh and arbitrary way in which the Government at St. Peters-
burg has for years past been engaged in the attempt to substitute
autocratic rule for the once free constitution of Finland.

The war between Russia and Japan has undergone a great develop-
ment during the month, and has now attained proportions which
irresistibly recall the mighty conflict of 1870. With one exception, all
the events of the month have been unfavourable to the arms of Russia.
This exception is the successful raid of the Vladivostok fleet into
Japanese waters, where the swift Russian cruisers were able to inflict
serious damage upon a fleet of the enemy's transports. The loss of
life was great, and the interruption to the Japanese operations has
been considerable. The Russian vessels were exceptionally fortunate
in being able to evade the Japanese squadron, and to return to Vladi-
vostok in safety. But though the Russians have been naturally
cheered by this, their first successful operation during the war, the
record of the month has been, in all other respects, uniformly adverse
to them. The investment of Port Arthur was completed on the
4th of June, and the Japanese armies began at once to move north-
wards in the direction of Mukden. A desperate attempt was made
by General Kuropatkin, at the urgent instigation of the authorities in

VOL. LVI — No. 329 M

162 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

St. Petersburg, to send a relieving force to Port Arthur. The result
has been at least one pitched battle, and a series of sanguinary engage-
ments. The pitched battle resulted in the complete defeat of the
Russians, with \ a loss that has been estimated at as high a figure as
10,000, and that probably does not fall far short of that number.
Since then there have been rumours of another engagement scarcely
less disastrous to the armies of the Czar, and the position of the corps
which made the abortive attempt to relieve Port Arthur is extremely
precarious. Not merely in scientific strategy, but in power of endur-
ance on the field of battle, the Japanese continue to manifest their
superiority to their foe, whose unquestionable valour seems of little
avail against the desperate courage and better generalship of the
enemy he has to face. General Kuropatkin is apparently being rein-
forced as rapidly as possible, but the Russian position in Manchuria
is not more hopeful than it was, and we seem to be on the eve of
grave, possibly even of decisive, events.

WEMYSS REID.

LAST MONTH

II

* As far as possible all actions of the Chinese Government are regu-
lated by precedents reaching back thousands of years, and a board
of the highest officials have to watch that all edicts and proclamations
conform in style, spirit, and substance with the ancient dynastic
regulations and Confucian precepts.' Only the other day I read
this sentence in an able article about the Yellow Peril, published last
month in this Review. In common with most of my brother publicists
my mind, such as it is, has been of late so much occupied with the
fiscal controversy that whatever I am reading I find myself reverting
to Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League. My first impression on
reading this passage was that by some printer's error the words China
and Confucius had been substituted for England and Cobden. A
second perusal dispelled this illusion ; but, as I read on, I learnt that
the writer of the article in question attributed the decay of the Celes-
tial Empire to the persistency with which the Chinese direct their
policy, and regulate their action, in accordance, not with the condi-
tions of the present day, but with theories laid down and promulgated
by teachers in the bygone past. A subsequent study of the speeches
delivered by the pundits of Liberalism on the occasion of the centenary
of Cobden's birth has caused me to feel deep anxiety about the extent
to which the Liberal party are adopting similar principles of govern-
ment to those which commend themselves to the collective wisdom of
China. Like causes produce like results ; and if, as I am daily assured,
the control of the British Empire is about to pass into the hands of a
party whose one article of faith is the infallibility of Cobden, I can
only come to the conclusion that sooner or later Great Britain must
incur the fate which has befallen the nation whose faith is pinned to
the omniscience of Confucius. The French have a proverb that
' so long as you live, you have got to live with the living, not with
the dead,' and the truth conveyed in this proverb is violated by any
country which refuses to deal with the present and adheres to the past.
In order to show how far the Cobdeniat and the Confucian evangels

163 M 2

164 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

resemble each other it may be well to quote a few flowers of rhetoric
culled from the adulatory speeches of the leaders of the Liberal party
during last month's commemoration of the centenary of Cobden's birth.

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman gave the note of the Cobden
demonstration by calling on his audience at the Alexandra Palace
* to declare their adherence to the doctrines which Cobden taught and
their determination that the power of these doctrines should not,.
God helping them, be impaired.' In respect of Cobden Sir Henry
seems to be what it is the fashion of the Liberals of to-day to call a
' whole hogger.' He not only pins his salvation to the faith of Free
Trade as expounded by the some time member for Stockport, but he
swallows without flinching the peace dogmas of which his guide,
philosopher, and friend was the exponent. He informs us that
' Cobden's belief in Free Trade was not a mere isolated doctrine
standing forlornly by itself ; it was part, and an essential part, of his
general outlook on the world. He saw the nations separated by
their selfishness and their suspicions ; he saw that militarism and
protection went hand in hand.' Even Sir Henry's enthusiasm could
not quite blind him to the fact that, though England under Cobden's
advice had adopted Free Trade for the last sixty years, militarism
has increased instead of declining. In order to meet this obvious
objection he informs his listeners that ' they were to assert, not with
bated breath, but in confident tones and in accents of triumph, that
Cobden's dream was no illusion, and that the strength of the country
depended not upon war equipment, not upon fleets and armies, but
upon peace equipment.' In plain language, the policy, in virtue of
which the eulogist of Cobden's foresight (the Minister of War under
the last Liberal administration and the nominal leader of the Liberal
party) proposes to secure to England the blessing of peace, is to reduce
our armaments, to leave our shores and harbours unprotected, on the
strength of his own conviction that Cobden was no dreamer of dreams,
but was right in his theories, however facts may have gone against
their realisation. Sir Henry's pompous eulogies were supported by a
claptrap speech of Mr. Winston Churchill, who ignored Cobden, except
as far as he dwelt upon the importance to Free Trade of his own con-
version to Cobdenian orthodoxy, and wound up with a stirring perora-
tion, in which he described the Unionists, whom he had just deserted,
as ' a capitalist party, the mere washpot of plutocracy, the engine of
the tariff and the trust, a hard confederation of interest and monopoly
banded together to corrupt and to plunder the Commonwealth.'

At Birmingham Mr. Morley had the good sense to admit that the
sudden desire exhibited by the Liberals to resuscitate the somewhat
faded memory of Cobden was ' not a purely ceremonial tribute to a
great public servant.' He had the good taste also to avoid any
personal attack on the member for West Birmingham. With a total
disregard, however, of historical proportion he poured forth his gall upon

1904 LAST MONTH 165

Prince Bismarck, and described the statesman who created a United
Germany as being a far less important personage than the politician
who founded the Anti-Corn Law League. ' What,' he asked the
operatives of Birmingham, ' was the use of stirring the people to-day
with German professors or economics of the moon ? ' No answer
being forthcoming to this inquiry, he proceeded to state ' that the
German nation had lost all confidence whatever, if they ever had any,
in these economics of the moon, which Prince Bismarck planted on
them twenty-five years ago.' In confirmation of his assertion that
Cobden's prophecies, however they had been discredited by the course
of events, must and would come out right in the end, he repeated a
remark made, or said to have been made, by Lord Melbourne three-
score years ago to the effect that ' it is madness to think you can ever
repeal the Corn Laws.' I should have thought myself that, as the
Corn Laws were repealed a few years later, this saying was a proof of
the folly of making prophecies as to the durability of any policy or
institution. Everything changes ; and yet Mr. Morley makes a
strong demand upon the credulity of his fellow countrymen when he
asks them to believe that the policy of Free Trade is the only thing
immutable in a world of change. In like fashion Sir Robert Giffen
informed the electorate of Hayward's Heath that ' no one can deny
the past . . . and that Cobden's work in the matter of commercial
policy was for all time.' At Carlisle the same dogma was affirmed by
Sir Robert Reid when he stated that ' the lessons which Cobden
taught our fathers were not lessons merely of passing value ; they
were founded on principles which were true for all time.' Freedom of
trade was declared by the Solicitor-General of the last Liberal Govern-
ment to occupy the first place in the category of ' things upon which
the true stability of this country depended.' To speak the plain
truth, the centenary celebration of Cobden's nativity was a happy
thought devised by the guiding spirits of the Liberal party in order
to discredit the cause of Tariff reform under the pretence of com-
memorating the public services of a well-nigh forgotten politician.
The more indiscriminate and the more exaggerated were the eulogies
showered upon Cobden and his policy, the more obvious was the
inference that Mr. Chamberlain was not deserving of public support.
If once it could be accepted as an article of faith that the authority of
Cobden in matters of trade must be accepted as final and conclusive,
it follows logically that there is no necessity even to consider the
arguments which prove, or try to prove, that a system of trade which
may have been beneficial to the community sixty years ago has,
owing to altered conditions, become prejudicial in the present year of
grace. When in the heyday of the Papacy the Sacred College closed
any controversy by the formula, ' Roma locuta est,' there was no more
to be said. In like fashion our latter-day Liberals seem to think that,
as the theories of Cobden are to dictate the commercial policy of this

166 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

country for all time, there is an end of all further discussion about
Tariff reform.

I doubt, however, whether these tactics will meet with the success
deserved by their ingenuity. There is great truth in the old saying
that a live dog is better than a dead lion. Without admitting that
canine or leonine characteristics can fairly be attributed to Cobden
or to Chamberlain, it is certain that the latter is very much alive,
and that the former is not only dead himself, but belongs to a dead
past. When the constituencies are called upon to vote, one speech
of Mr. Chamberlain's will exercise a greater influence on public senti-
ment than a score of eulogies on Cobden's sendees in having brought
about the repeal of the Corn Laws. There was little or nothing about
Cobden to appeal to popular imagination. He was a kindly, worthy
man, honourable, both in his public and private life ; an energetic
organiser of political agitation ; an excellent expositor of other men's
ideas ; an earnest worker on behalf of any cause he espoused, though
his earnestness owed more than half its effect to his inability to realise
that there are always two sides to every question. Of genius he had
not a touch. The accident of fortune associated his name with the
Anti-Corn Law crusade, but in reality Adam Smith, Sir Robert Peel,
John Bright, George Thompson, and Charles Villiers played equally
important parts in the establishment of Free Trade as the basis of
our fiscal policy. This policy, I would add, owed its success far more
to the Irish famine than to the efforts of any individual, however
meritorious. Even the high literary ability and the charm of style
possessed by my friend John Morley proved insufficient to make the
Life of Richard Cobden interesting to the general reader. To sum up,
Cobden's is not a name to conjure with, and I believe before many
months are over the truth of this opinion will be made manifest in a
way to which even the Cobden Club will be unable to shut their eyes.

The sentence with which I commence this article reminds me
of another instance in which the example of China seems to have
commended itself to the approval of our Liberal mandarins. I am
informed by persons well acquainted with the Celestial Kingdom that
though the Chinaman under intelligent discipline will make an effi-
cient soldier, any real reorganisation of China as a military Power
is rendered impossible by the extraordinary respect and reverence
entertained for education by all classes in the Empire. From the
days of Confucius the literati amongst his fellow countrymen have
been taught to believe that war is an occupation unworthy of a rational
human being, that the study of killing is one which could not be
pursued without loss of self-respect, and that proficients in the degrad-
ing art of war are not fit to associate with men who have earned dis-
tinction and fortune by passing successful examinations. This teaching
has so impressed itself upon the Chinese mind that no man of any
social position or standing will ever consent willingly to enter the army

1904 LAST MONTH 167

as a profession. To become an officer is to lose caste, to bring disgrace
upon your relatives and even your ancestors. The result is that the
offieers of the Celestial army are to-day, and have been for centuries,
men of no character, who have enlisted in order to save themselves
from destitution, and whose sole ambition is to add to their inadequate
pay by corruption and peculation. It would be absurd to say that a
similar danger threatens the military power of England. The fighting
instincts of our race are happily too strong to allow of our ever learning,
as a nation, to look with contempt on the trade of soldiering. Our
robust common-sense leads us to recognise the absurdity of the saying,
«o fashionable in the ' forty years of peace ' era, that the pen is stronger
than the sword, or to believe that courts of arbitration will ever remove
the necessity for standing armies. Still, it is impossible for any
impartial observer to be blind to the fact that the tendency of the
English Liberals, as a party, is to decry militarism, to deprecate
Imperialism, to spread abroad the conviction that the first duty of
English statesmanship is to occupy itself with domestic reforms, and
to remove social abuses rather than to provide for the safety of Great
Britain and the British Empire. When war is described as con-
sisting, to use Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's phrase, in ' methods
of barbarism,' when the mere suggestion of a resort to conscription is
denounced by the organs of Liberalism as being an outrage upon the
working population of the United Kingdom, it is impossible to avoid
the conclusion that the party which associates itself with the traditions
of Cobden is treading in the footsteps of Confucius. I do not dispute
the genuineness of Cobden's convictions. What I object to is the
assumption that these convictions were the result of deep study or of
any profound insight into human nature. The basis of his fiscal
policy was that it would be for the good of humanity if every nation
devoted itself to the cultivation of those products it was best fitted
to produce by its natural conditions. According to his theory England,
which, in virtue of her possession of coal and iron, was then the chief,
almost the sole manufacturing Power in the world, was to make herself
the workshop of the globe and to retain her monopoly of production
by throwing open her markets to all countries who in return would
supply her with bread stuffs.

Owing to Cobden's utter inability to comprehend the force of
nationality he failed to perceive that other nations were not prepared
to forego the advantage of having factories and workshops of their
own in consideration of gaining a higher profit on their agricultural
exports. The result was that his scheme ended in signal failure. The
poliey of open markets propounded by the Anti-Corn Law League,
instead of converting other nations to Free Trade, caused them,
without exception, to adopt the system of Protection, under which
they have developed manufactures of their own capable of under-
selling the manufactures of England in her home markets. In like

168 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY July

fashion Cobden was unable to comprehend that cheap food would not
prove a sufficient boon to induce British workmen to forego the prospect
of earning higher wages by forming trade unions, whose reason of being
is to raise the profits of the workman at the cost of his employer.
Throughout his public career Cobden never concealed his want of
sympathy with the attempts made by working men to better their
condition through co-operation. Whether his views on this point were
right or wrong is not the question under consideration. My only
reason for alluding to the subject is to show how little he understood
the nature of the British working classes if he believed that to them
cheap bread was the one thing needful. If proof were needed of the
weakness of the Liberal party it would be found in the fact that they
have attempted to win over the working class electorate by recalling
the memory of Cobden as that of an authority which outweighs any
possible argument in favour of tariff reform. If they are again to regard
the cheap loaf as their in hoc signo vinces they will not be long in find-
ing out their mistake. I should, therefore, recommend them to study
the example of the Chinese in simply reciting the greatness of Confucius
without giving reasons for their belief. I learn that the following
eulogy of the sage is one still popular in the Celestial Empire :

Confucius ! Confucius ! How great was Confucius !

Before him there was no Confucius ;

Since him there has been no other.

Confucius 1 Confucius ! How great was Confucius !

I venture to suggest that if for Confucius the celebrators of the
recent centenary had substituted the name of Cobden, and had recited
a like stanza at their demonstrations, they would have saved them-
selves an unnecessary outpour of words and have done more to impress
upon their audiences the claim of their hero to be regarded as a man
whose wisdom was above discussion. If for the sake of euphony they
should Latinise the name of Cobden and call him Cobdenius, the
change would improve the euphony of the stanza, without detracting
from its intrinsic value.

In connection with this subject I trust I may be permitted to
say a few words as to certain strictures on the present writer which
have recently been made by Lord Avebury in his treatise on Free Trade,
and which have been reproduced with warm approval in the Spectator.
There is nothing in those strictures of which I have any cause to com-
plain, except that they are utterly irrelevant to the question at issue.
I do not profess to be an authority on questions of political economy.
All I claim is to be an authority, though on a small and humble scale,
on questions of common-sense. I am not sufficiently conversant
with trade matters to decide between the merits or demerits of Free
Trade as a working system. All I contend is that Free Trade is not
a dogma which cannot be called in question ; and that the issue

1904 LAST MONTH 169

between restricted and unrestricted competition must as a matter
of right, as well as of fact, be ultimately decided by the voice of the
country, not by that of its self -constituted pedagogues. In support
of this contention I have dared to point out that Cobden, whatever
may be the value of his opinions enunciated threescore years ago, is
not entitled to credit as a prophet. I am asked by Lord Avebury
to recant my words and to acknowledge Cobden' s claim to prophetic
wisdom because he foresaw that Free Trade would be good for England.
To put forward this statement as self-evident is to beg the question,
a mode of argument unworthy even of the Cobden Club. Lord
Avebury proceeds to dispute another statement of mine made also in
these pages, that ' the opinion of the " civilised world," about which
we used to hear so much during the Boer war, is dead against Free
Trade.' His Lordship admits that ' in practice, no doubt, most
countries are Protectionist.' He retorts with a tu quoque remark that
I am not justified in making this statement, because I attached no
value to the opinion of the civilised world concerning the Boer war.
The fallacy of this retort is too obvious to be overlooked even by
Macaulay's typical schoolboy. Let me say in passing from this
subject that Lord Avebury's treatise on Free Trade is free from the
personal vituperations of Mr. Chamberlain which, as a rule, discredit
the utterances of the Unionist Free Fooders.

I note one feature in the speech delivered last month by Lord
Rosebery at the Liberal League for which I must express my sincere
gratitude. I do not find a single reference to Cobden or his centenary
contained therein. The omission, I think, can best be accounted for
by the supposition that his Lordship is alive to the fact that nowadays
the name of Cobden is not a trump card even in the Liberal pack, and
that if the Liberals hope to win the day at the next general election
the less they say about the Anti-Corn Law League the better for their
prospects of success. The Liberal League was, if my memory serves me
rightly, founded during the war by a small section of the Opposition
who were unable to join the hostility of the Liberals to the Boer war.
and who were anxious to dissociate themselves from the Anti-Imperialist
policy espoused by their Radical colleagues. Having formed the
league, and having thereby recorded their protest against being
described as Pro-Boers and Little Englanders, they felt under no
obligation to take any further steps to convert their fellow Liberals
to sounder views of policy. They considered themselves to be the
elite of Liberalism ; and they were convinced the presence in their
ranks of Lord Rosebery would suffice, to quote his own words, ' to
rescue and differentiate sane Imperialism from shoddy Imperialism.'
Having thus vindicated the orthodoxy of the League in Imperial
matters, the ex-Premier proceeded to declare that ' in no case he was
aware of, and on no occasion, has loyalty to the Liberal League con-
flicted in the slightest degree with loyalty to the leaders and the policy

170 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July

of the Opposition.' In other words, the Liberal League supports
Imperialism in the abstract, but declines to support it in the concrete.
Such an attitude undoubtedly avoids the necessity of taking any
action which might commit the League definitely to the cause even of
sane Imperialism. Nothing can be more comprehensive than Lord
Rosebery's statement of the terms on which outsiders can obtain
admission to the League. ' You ' (the Liberal Leaguers) ' want
everybody that you can rally to your standard — Liberal Leaguers
or official Liberals, or the various other leagues that exist, and besides
those let me say that you require, when you can secure them on any-
thing like fair terms, all the support of those Tories who have fought
for Free Trade under circumstances so difficult and dangerous to
themselves.' We know what the standard is under which Liberals of
all sorts are invited to enlist ; we need no telling that the object of the
campaign is to turn out the Government and to place the Liberals in
office. But as for what ends and for what purposes their tenure of
office is to be employed is a matter concerning which we are left in
utter ignorance. We are furnished instead, by Lord Rosebery, with
a series of prolix platitudes. We are assured that efficiency is to be
the dominant feature of the coming Liberal Administration ; that oppor-
tunism will not be excluded from consideration, and that ' Liberalism
is no particular measure, but it is the frame and spirit of mind in which
we approach great political questions. . . . Liberalism is the readiness
to accept and to assimilate the best ideas of the time, and to apply
them honestly in action.' As to this definition of Liberalism, I need
only remark that it is a repetition of the stock phrases by which every
Ministry, Whig or Tory, Liberal or Conservative, Unionist or anti-
Unionist, has heralded its accession to office. If the end and aim of
the Liberal League is to furnish Lord Rosebery with an opportunity for
uttering commonplace truisms in a graceful manner there is no more
to be said, except that his Lordship has an unlimited flow of words,
and that his followers have a still more unlimited store of patience.
If, however, I am rightly informed, the real reason which justifies the
existence of the Liberal League is the necessity of not allowing Lord
Rosebery's claims to the next Liberal Premiership to drop out of
sight. The League is, in fact, an agency for the advancement of
Lord Rosebery's candidature in the event of the Premiership being
thrown open to competition. Fortunately, perhaps, from a Con-
servative point of view,Tiis Lordship has an invincible repugnance to
putting himself forward as the leader of his party. He is eager to
secure the apples of office, but he insists that the apples should fall
into his mouth, and even declines to take any part in shaking the apple
tree. This is the explanation of the revival of the Liberal League.
The muster-roll has been called. Sir Edward Grey, Sir Henry Fowler,
Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and some sixteen members of Parliament
have responded to the call, and the Radical section of the Opposition

1904 LAST MONTH 171

have been given to understand that if they want to see a Liberal
administration in office they can only do so on condition that they are
willing to accept Lord Rosebery as the future Premier. If we are to
have a Liberal Ministry in office after the General Election I should
prefer either Lord Rosebery or any of his squires to Sir Henry Camp-
bell-Bannerman. But at the best the choice between a Rosebery or a
Campbell-Bannerman Ministry would only be a choice of evils. For
my own part I distrust the good faith or the sagacity of a statesman
who, while he acknowledges that the support of the Irish Nationalists
is essential to the maintenance of the Liberal party in office, seriously
informs his personal supporters that the policy of a Liberal administra-
tion with respect to Home Rule will not be affected by the necessity
of conciliating the Home Rule vote. Hitherto, whenever any criticism
has been made as to the qualifications of the various politicians who
are destined in their own opinion, and in that of their followers, to
occupy prominent positions in the Ministry which is to replace the
Unionist Government, the critics were met with one stock rejoinder.
If we doubted the special fitness of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to
become once more Secretary of State for War ; if we were not con-
fident as to Mr. Asquith being competent to discharge the duties of
the leader of the House of Commons ; if we ventured to suggest that
Mr. Lloyd George might cut a sorry figure as a Cabinet Minister, or if
we raised some other equally frivolous objection, we were told that at
all events Lord Rosebery was pointed out by the consensus of public
opinion as the ideal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Even
this consolation is no longer forthcoming. The ex-Premier went out
of his way, while expatiating to the Liberal League upon the imminence
of a great Liberal reaction, to denounce the Anglo-French compact by
saying that ' no more one-sided agreement was ever concluded between
two Powers at peace with each other.' In order to leave no doubt in
the minds of the Liberal Leaguers as to which side had had the worst
of the bargain, his Lordship proceeded to drive home his assertions by
remarking : ' I hope and trust, but I hope and trust rather than I
believe, that the Power which holds Gibraltar may never have cause to
regret having handed Morocco over to a great military Power.' Now,
if words have any meaning, these words mean that France purports
to employ the free hand we have accorded to her in dealing with
Morocco to deprive us of our naval supremacy in the Mediterranean.
Even if this insinuation were based upon any serious foundation there
was no possible good to be gained by throwing doubt on the good
faith of France, and the very last man in the whole of the United
Kingdom who could have been justified in making such an aspersion
is the predecessor of Mr. Balfour in the Premiership and of Lord
Lansdowne at the Foreign Office. Both as Prime Minister and as
Foreign Secretary Lord Rosebery must have had ample opportunities
of observing how seriously England was hampered in consolidating

172 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY July 1904

her authority in Egypt by the constant hostility of France. Yet,
knowing what he does, he has deliberately striven in his address to the
Liberal League to depreciate the advantages England derives from
having France with her, instead of against her, in her administration
of Egyptian affairs. Since his retirement from office his Lordship has
lost no opportunity of dilating on the arduousness of his labours in
Downing Street. Possibly, if he had worked fewer hours and indited
fewer despatches, he might have acquired a better knowledge of foreign
affairs than he now seems to possess. The only explanation of the
extraordinary indiscretion thus committed by Lord Rosebery is that
he was led astray by his desire to disparage an agreement which he is
shrewd enough to see has done much to influence popular opinion in
favour of the Government under whose control a cordial understanding
has been established between France and England . So long, however, as
he could at last convey the impression how much better a bargain he
could have made for this country, supposing he had been in command at
Downing Street, he was apparently indifferent to minor considerations.
Such at least is the best excuse I can suggest for a speech that never
ought to have been spoken, and above all not by the speaker who
gave it utterance.

Somehow or other neither the resuscitation of Cobden nor the re-
appearance of Lord Rosebery as a candidate for the Premiership
seems to have got matters much forwarder in our home politics. The
Opposition appears for the time to have lost heart, while the Ministry
are sanguine as to their retention of power till after the close of the
Session, and of their being able before Parliament is prorogued to show
a satisfactory record of legislation. Personally I attribute the lull of
public interest in political controversies to the fact that the fortunes
of the war now waging in the Far East monopolise popular attention.
The more protracted the war seems likely to become the more men's
thoughts are turned to the effect the campaign, whichever way it may
end, must necessarily produce on the fortunes of all non-belligerent
States, and especially of the British Empire.

The war in the Far East seems to me likely, in the near future, to
bring about indirect results of far graver importance than its direct
effects on the fortunes of the two belligerents. Even if Russia, as
now seems daily less probable, should come out victorious from the
conflict the world will be confronted with the hard fact that an Oriental
nation, with a code of religion and morality utterly different from, if
not antagonistic to, our European ideas, has attained a standard
of patriotic altruism far exceeding any ideal attained before or
even conceived as possible in this old world of ours.

EDWARD DICEY.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.

THE

NINETEENTH
CENTURY

AND AFTER

XX

No. CGCXXX— AUGUST 1904

JAPAN AND THE COMMENCEMENT
OF THE WAR WITH RUSSIA

AMOXG other questions raised by an article from the pen of Sir John
Macdonell, in this Review for July, on ' The Present War,' there is
one on which I should like to offer some observations from a Japanese
point of view.

Sir John Macdonell appears to think that our attack came to
Russia as a surprise, and was therefore unjustifiable ; and whilst he
makes reservations on account of his lack of accurate information
concerning the actual state of affairs at the commencement of the
war, he proceeds to argue that it was a nice point whether the negotia-
tions had or had not, on the 8th or 9th of February last, reached a
stage at which discussion had really been abandoned, and both sides
had resolved to accept the arbitrament of battle. Sir John seems to
consider that notice should be given to an adversary, before beginning a
war, that hostilities have become inevitable.

I will not say anything about the fact that the first shot was fired
by the Russians on the Japanese vessels at Schimulpo ; nor is it ray

VOL. LVI— No. 330 N

174 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

intention to enter upon any justification of Japan's course of action
on the common theory of international law, or on the basis of the
prevailing practice in such cases, or it could be shown that a formal
declaration is not needed to constitute a state of war. On the con-
trary, I rather appreciate Sir John's contention that no blows should
be struck without adequate warning, or while diplomatists are still
debating the matters in dispute. And it is my desire to prove that
Japan, far from taking her enemy unawares, did actually do precisely
as Sir John Macdonell is anxious to show she ought to have done, and
that, in the sense of his comment on the operations, there was no
room for the Russians to be surprised in any degree whatever.

I will first endeavour to demonstrate the truth of this proposition
by recalling the successive stages of those negotiations which cul-
minated in hostilities ; but it is unnecessary to dwell upon the earlier
part of the diplomatic correspondence, nor is it worth while to enlarge
either on the flagrant neglect of Russia to fulfil her own pledges, or
on the persistency with which she sought to (the expression may be
pardoned, since there is no other term that applies equally well) make
a fool of Japan throughout the protracted negotiations. It may
suffice to point out that, from the very nature of those negotiations,
any failure to arrive at a satisfactory understanding was tantamount
to an admission that war was inevitable.

The most acute phase was reached in November 1903, as was
plainly indicated in the telegram despatched on the 21st of that month
to Mr. Kurino, the Japanese Minister at St. Petersburg, by Baron
Komura, Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Government of Tokio, in
which the following passage occurs :

Baron Bosen added that he had not yet received any instructions on the
subject of the counter-proposals, consequently you are instructed to see Count
Lamsdorff as soon as possible, and after explaining to him Baron Eosen's state-
ments, as above, you will say that the Japanese Government are anxious to
proceed with the negotiations with all possible expedition, and you will urge
him to exert his influence to secure the early despatch of instructions to Baron
Bosen, in order that negotiations may be resumed and concluded without delay.

This view was, of course, communicated to the Russian Foreign
Minister, and after further futile endeavours on Japan's part to elicit
an early reply. Baron Kornura telegraphed to Mr. Kurino on the
1st of December 1903, again urging the importance of a speedy solution
of the question at issue, in yet more plain-spoken fashion ; and he
wound up his despatch thus :

In these circumstances the Japanese Government cannot but regard with
grave concern the situation, for which the delays in the negotiations are largely
responsible. You are instructed to see Count Lamsdorff as soon as possible, and
place the foregoing considerations before him in such form and manner as to
make your representations as impressive as possible. You will add that the
Japanese Government believe they are rendering a service to the general
interest in thus frankly explaining to the Bussian Government the actual state
of things.

1904 JAPAN AND THE WAR 175

When Mr. Kurino made these representations, which could scarcely
have been more explicit, to Count Lamsdorff, the Russian Minister
said that ' he would fully explain the urgency of the matter on the
occasion of his audience on the following Tuesday ' ; but things in
reality were made to drag on, and the Russian preference for the
game of diplomatic seesaw was exemplified to the full, until at last,
on the 23rd of December, when three whole weeks had been frittered
away, Mr. Kurino, reporting to Baron Komura an interview which
he had just had with Count Lamsdorff, thus ended his despatch :

In conclusion, I stated to him that under the circumstances it might cause
serious difficulties, even complications, if \ve failed to come to an entente, and
I hoped he would exercise his best influence so as to enable us to reach the
desired end.

On the 6th of January 1904 a Russian reply was handed at Tokio
by Baron Rosen to Baron Komura, but in substance it amounted to
little more than a repetition, save for mere changes of wording, of
what had gone before, and the attitude of Russia, it was plain, had
undergone no sensible alteration. Speaking candidly, there was an
end to all hope ; but the Government of Tokio, still willing to exert
itself, and even to make some concession, again invited the Russian
Government, on the 13th of January ,rto reconsider the matter, in terms
which, though conciliatory enough, constituted practically an ultimatum.
In the despatch conveying this decision to the Russian Government
the subjoined phrase occurred :

The grounds for these amendments having been frequently and fully
explained on previous occasions, the Imperial Government do not think it
necessary to repeat the explanations. It is sufficient here to express their
earnest hope for reconsideration by the Imperial Kussian Government.

And again :

The above-mentioned amendments being proposed by the Imperial Govern-
ment entirely in a spirit of conciliation, it is expected that they will be received
in the same spirit at the hands of the Imperial Russian Government ; and the
Imperial Government further hope for an early reply from the Imperial Eussian
Government, since further delay in the solution of the question will be extremely
disadvantageous to the two countries.

Even in the face of such earnest representations of the danger of
procrastination Russia still dallied, and on the 23rd and 26th of
January 1904 Baron Komura successively telegraphed to Mr. Kurino,
pressing for a prompt response. In one of the telegrams Mr. Kurino
was instructed to seek an interview with Count Lamsdorff and state
to him, as a direct instruction received from the Japanese Government,
that,

in the opinion of the Imperial Government, a further prolongation of the present
state of things being calculated to accentuate the gravity of the situation, it is
their earnest hope that they will be honoured with an early reply, and that they
wish to know at what time they may expect to receive the reply.

N 2

176 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

On the 28th of January Mr. Kurino reported to Baron Komura
his interview with Count Lamsdorff, in which he explains how

He (Count Larnsdorff) stated that -the Grand Duke Alexis and the Minister
of Marine are to be received in audience next Monday, and the Minister of War
and himself on Tuesday, and he thinks an answer will be sent to Admiral
Alexeieff on the latter day. I pointed out the urgent necessity to accelerate the
despatch of an answer as much as possible, ' because further prolongation of
tlie present condition is not only undesirable, but rather dangerous.' I added
that all the while the world is loud with rumours, and that I hoped he would
take special steps so as to have an answer sent at an earlier date than men-
tioned. He replied that ' he knoivs tJie existing condition of things very ivsll,
but that the dates of audience being fixed as above mentioned, it is not now
possible to change them ' ; and he repeated that ' he will do his best to send the
reply next Tuesday (the 2nd of February).'

Upon this Baron Komura, still anxious beyond measure to avoid
the risks attendant upon these indefinite conditions, again telegraphed,
on the 30th of January, to Mr. Kurino to see Count Lamsdorff at the
earliest opportunity and state to him that :

Having reported to your Government that the Kussian Government would
probably give a reply on next Tuesday, you have been instructed to say to
Count Lamsdorff that, being fully convinced of the serious disadvantage to the
two Powers concerned of the further prolongation of the present situation, the
Imperial Government hoped that they might be able to receive the reply of the
Kussian Government earlier than the date mentioned by Count Lamsdorff.
As it, however, appears that the receipt of the reply at an earlier date is not
possible, the Imperial Government wish to know whether they will be honoured
with the reply at the date mentioned by Count Lamsdorff, namely, next Tuesday
(2nd of February), or, if it is not possible, what will be the exact date on which
the reply is to be given.

On the evening of the 31st of January Mr. Kurino saw Count
Lamsdorff, who said that he

fully appreciated the gravity of the present situation, and was certainly
desirous to send an answer as quickly as possible, but that the question was a
very serious one and not lightly to be dealt with. The opinions of the Ministers
concerned and of Admiral Alexeieff had to be brought into harmony — hence the
delay. As to the date of sending an answer, it was not possible for him to give
the exact date, as it entirely depended on the decision of the Emperor, though
he would not fail to uso his efforts to hurry the matter.

It was not until the fifth day after this interview which Mr. Kurino
had with Count Lamsdorff, and the third day after the reply had been
promised to be given, namely, on the 5th of February 1904, at
2.15 P.M., that Baron Komura telegraphed to Mr. Kurino as follows :

Further prolongation of the present situation being inadmissible, the Imperial
Government have decided to terminate the pending negotiations and to take
such independent action as they may deem necessary to defend their menaced
position and to protect their rights and interests. Accordingly, you are
instructed to address to Count Lamsdorff, immediately upon receipt of this
telegram, a signed Note to the following effect :

1904 JAPAN AND THE WAR 177

' The undersigned, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of his
Majesty the Emperor of Japan, has the honour, in pursuance of instructions
from his Government, to address to his Excellency the Minister for Foreign
Affairs of his Majesty the Emperor of All the Eussias the following com-
munication :

' The Government of H.M. the Emperor of Japan regard the independence
and territorial integrity of the Empire of Korea as essential to their own repose
and safety, and they are consequently unable to view with indifference any
action tending to render the position of Korea insecure.

' The successive rejections by the Imperial Eussian Government, by means
of inadmissible amendments, of Japan's proposals respecting Korea, the adop-
tion of which the Imperial Government regarded as indispensable to assure the
independence and territorial integrity of the Korean Empire and to safeguard
Japan's preponderating interests in the peninsula, coupled with the successive
refusals of the Imperial Russian Government to enter into engagements to
respect China's territorial integrity in Manchuria, which is seriously menaced
by their continued occupation of the province, notwithstanding their treaty
engagements with China and their repeated assurances to other Powers pos-
sessing interests in those regions, have made it necessary for the Imperial
Government seriously to consider what measures of self-defence they are called
upon to take.

' In the presence of delays which remain largely unexplained, and naval and
military activities which it is difficult to reconcile with entirely pacific amis, the
Imperial Government have exercised in the pending negotiations a degree of
forbearance which they believe affords abundant proof of their loyal desire to
remove from their relations with the Imperial Eussian Government every
cause for future misunderstanding ; but, finding in their efforts no prospect of
securing from the Imperial Eussian Government an adhesion either to Japan's
moderate and unselfish proposals, or to any other proposals likely to establish a
firm and enduring peace in the extreme East, the Imperial Government have
no alternative than to terminate the present futile negotiations.

' In adopting that course the Imperial Government reserve to themselves the
right to take such independent action as they may deem best to consolidate and
defend their menaced position, as well as to protect their established rights and
legitimate interests.'

Simultaneously with the presentation of this Note Mr. Kurino was
instructed to address Count Lamsdorff in writing to the following
effect :

The undersigned Envoy Extraordinary, &c., &c., has the honour, in pursu-
ance of instructions from his Government, to acquaint H.E. the Minister for
Foreign Affairs, &c., &<;., that the Imperial Government of Japan, having
exhausted, without effect, every means of conciliation, with a view to the removal
from their relations with the Imperial Russian Government of every cause for
future complications, and finding that their just representations and moderate
and unselfish proposals in the interest of a firm and lasting peace in the extreme
East are not receiving the consideration which is their due, have resolved to
sever their diplomatic relations with the Imperial Eussian Government, which
for the reason named have ceased to possess any value.

In further fulfilment of the command of his Government, the undersigned
has also the honour to announce to H.E. Count Lamsdorff that it is his intention
to take his departure from St. Petersburg, with the Staff of the Imperial
Legation.

These Notes were presented to Count LamsdorS by Mr. Kurino on

178 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY Aug.

the 6th of February, at 4 P.M., and on the same day Baron Komura
conveyed a formal intimation to Baron Rosen, in Tokio, in the sense
that

Whereas the Japanese Government had made every effort to arrive at an
amicable settlement of the Manchurian question with Russia, the latter had not
evinced any disposition to reciprocate this peaceful purpose. Therefore Japan
could not continue the diplomatic conferences. She was regretfully compelled
to take independent action for the protection of her rights and interests, and she
must decline to accept the responsibility of any incidents that might occur in
consequence.

A dispassionate perusal of all the foregoing despatches cannot fail
to lead the student of history to the conclusion that repeated warnings
were given by Japan in the successive stages of the negotiations, and
that the last two despatches, dated the 5th of February, left absolutely
no room for doubt that Japan had finally, though reluctantly,
arrived at the conclusion that war was inevitable. The wording is
polite, but who can doubt that it was a clear notice of war ?

I must go farther than this ; and it will, I think, be equally plain
when I have finished that not only had Japan made up her rnind upon
this point, but that Russia by her actions — which ' speak louder than
words ' — conclusively manifested that her intentions were warlike too.
First, let me mention that the day on which Count Lamsdorff had
led Mr. Kurino to expect that the reply would be ready was Tuesday,
the 2nd of February. The day on which negotiations were finally
broken ofi was Saturday, the 6th of February. On the intervening
Thursday the Russian fleet at Port Arthur suddenly emerged from
harbour and steamed out for hours to the south-eastward, ultimately
returning to port. For what purpose this cruise was undertaken
could not be divined, but it created of necessity intense excitement
and anxiety in Japan, where it was interpreted as the prelude to some
desperate measure, and the activity of the Russian naval squadron,
thus exemplified, is wholly inconsistent with the theory of unprepared-
ness. It should be remembered that for a long time before this Russia
had been pouring regiment after regiment into Manchuria, her Cossacks
had invaded Korea, warship after warship had been despatched from
Western waters to reinforce the fleet which she already had in Far
Eastern seas, and in her diplomacy she had displayed a persistent arro-
gance which contrasted strongly with the conciliatory attitude of Japan.

But this is not all. At the moment when Admiral Togo actually
made his attack the Russian ships laij outside the harbour in a perfect
battle array, in front of the shore forts and batteries of the fortress, a
position that they had taken up on their return from their cruise to
the south-eastward. Wherein was the unpreparedness ? If the
officers of the Russian ships were caught in an unguarded moment,
blame must not be imputed to the Japanese. The cause must rather
be sought in a misconception on the part of the Russians of the watchful

1904 JAPAN AND THE WAE 179

strategy which the situation demanded. The facts are, moreover,
that the Russian ships had lain under a full head of steam for days
off the Port Arthur entrance, had been continually using their search-
lights as though they apprehended an attack, the battleships had
their decks cleared for action, and the instant that the first torpedo
was launched the Russians opened fire on the Japanese boats.

These remarks should alone suffice to show that Russia was not
taken by surprise ; but I will show a few well-authenticated figures in
addition. Her warlike preparations in the Far East had been going
on from the previous April, when she ought by right to have been
completing the evacuation of Manchuria in accordance with her
solemn pledges. In the remaining months of 1903 she despatched to
Far Eastern waters

Combined
Tonnage

Three battleships ........ 38,488

One armoured cruiser ....... 7,727

Five other cruisers 26,417

Seven destroyers 2,450

One gunboat 1,344

Two mine-laying craft 6,000

Seven other destroyers were sent by rail to Port Arthur and there
put together, and two vessels of the ' Volunteer ' Fleet were armed
and hoisted the Russian naval ensign at Vladivostock.

On land the increase of the Russian forces was equally marked.
The known augmentations, subsequent to the end of June 1903, were
two infantry brigades, two artillery battalions, and a large force of
cavalry. The total was continually being increased by troops being
sent by train from Russia, up to 40,000, and plans were made for
despatching over 200,000 more men. In October a train of fourteen
cars was hurriedly sent off, laden with the equipment of a field hospital.

On the 21st of January two battalions of infantry and a detach-
ment of cavalry were sent from Port Arthur and Dalny to menace
the northern frontier of Korea. On the 28th of January Admiral
Alexeieff gave to the Russian forces then stationed in the vicinity
of the Yalu River orders to prepare for war. Troops were advanced
in large numbers at the same time from Liao-Yang towards the Yalu.
And on the 1st of February the military commandant at Vladivostock
formally requested the Japanese Commercial Agent at that port, by
order of the Russian Government, to notify Japan that a state of siege
might be proclaimed at any moment. This was five days, be it
observed, before Japan broke off diplomatic relations.

Sir John Macdonell says :

It [the first torpedoing the Russian vessels] was an attack of surprise. Was
it a treacherous and disloyal act ? The question must be put with the know-
ledge that a nation which is patient may be duped ; that the first blow counts
much ; and that under cover of continuing negotiations a country unprepared
might deprive another better equipped of its advantages.

180 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

All that I have said above would be sufficient to solve these points
of the question. The attack on Port Arthur was not an attack of
surprise in the sense of international law. It can be at the most
spoken of as an attack of tactical surprise, though it was not also
the case. The party who was defeated can complain of it no more
than he can complain of the defeat of the Yalu or Kinchow. The
Russian plan was to deprive Japan of her chance, and either to bluff
her off to the end or to fight at the hour of their own choice. Japan
was patient enough ; if she were patient longer she would have been
completely duped. As a matter of fact, there was some report that
the plan of the Russians was to make a sudden raid on Japan on about
the 20th of February, and that was not at all improbable. Some
Russians say that Russia never meant to go to war, and that the
very fact that she was not at all prepared to cope with a little nation
like Japan is the best proof of it. This does not follow at all, and
nothing is more foreign to the fact than to imagine that Russia was
sincerely anxious to maintain peace. In the eyes of the Russians
there was no such Japan as they have, or rather the world has, begun
to see since the opening of the war. They trusted, no doubt, either
to bs able to bluff through or crush at a blow if necessary. Even
in the battle of the Yalu, nay, even in the battle of Kinchow, or
Wafangu, they were unable to believe that the Japanese were not
after all ' monkeys with the brain of birds ' ! Only a little time ago
an eminent French statesman told me that France understood Japan
little ; Russia still less. It was the sole cause of the present un-
fortunate war. ' In that respect,' he continued, ' England was
sharper, for she understood the Far East, and, consequently, the
changing circumstances of the world, before any other Occidental
nation.'

There is, I believe, a good deal in it.

SUYEMATSU.

1904

OUR BI-CENTENARY ON THE ROCK

ON the 4th of August 1704 (New Style), the Eock of Gibraltar was
captured by Great Britain, and it has remained in her possession from
that day to this. Among the many possessions scattered all over
the globe that are comprised in the British Empire to-day, there is
none that the nation holds with greater tenacity for reasons both of
sentiment and of material interest, and none that it would lose with
more poignant shame and sorrow, than the redoubtable stronghold
we took from Spain at the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne.
Short-lived indeed would be the Ministry who, in some amicable settle-
ment of long-standing disputes, proposed to hand over Gibraltar to
its original and (in a geographical sense) natural owners or to any
other Power ; and the pride and strength of England would have to be
humbled to the very dust in war before the surrender of the Rock could
be included in any conditions which a British Government would so
much as take into consideration as the price of peace.

The fact that throughout the eighteenth century, when so many
conquests in both hemispheres changed hands backwards and for-
wards in successive wars and under successive treaties, Gibraltar
remained permanently in the keeping of England, might seem to
prove that British sentiment with regard to it was from the first the
same as it is to-day. But this is far from having been the case. For,
although at the end of two hundred years of our possession of the for-
tress, at a time when the Imperial instinct of Englishmen has become
more consciously developed and more deeply ingrained than ever
before, and at the same time more intelligently appreciative of the true
meaning of sea power and alive to the strategical requirements of its
maintenance, the retention of the key of the Mediterranean has
become an essential article of our political creed, it was a considerable
time before the immense value of the acquisition was fully realised
by British statesmen. It seems strange enough to us to remember that
King George the First and his Ministers were ready to give up Gibraltar
merely to secure Spain's acquiescence in the arrangement by which
the Quadruple Alliance was anxious to make some pettifogging modi-
fications in the shuffle of territories effected by the Treaty of Utrecht ;
but it is still more extraordinary that so clear-sighted, patriotic, and

181

182 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

high-spirited an empire-builder as Lord Chatham himself should
have made a similar offer as an inducement to Spain to help us to
recover Minorca — and this, moreover, at a time when the fortress had
been in our hands for more than half a century, and its vital importance
to our growing maritime supremacy had already been abundantly
proved in the naval wars of the period. Happily the Spaniards were
as blind as ourselves to the supreme importance of the position com-
manding the road from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Their
pride was, it is true, grievously wounded by its loss, and throughout
the greater part of the eighteenth century its recovery was one of the
most cherished aims of their policy and of their warlike efforts ; but
they clung to the hope that fortune would restore it to them without
requiring them to pay even the paltry price demanded on different
occasions by England. At all events, the continual readjustments
of territory elsewhere in Europe made or proposed to be made in the
interests of the various reigning dynasties were deemed by Spain
of greater immediate moment than the ownership of Gibraltar.
England's short-sighted proposals to part with its possession were
therefore once and again rejected, with the fortunate result that we
are this month entering on our third century of occupation of the
Rock.

The truth is, as readers of Mahan do not need to be reminded,
that the importance of sea power and the nature of the foundations
on which it is based were very imperfectly grasped even by England
in the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, and
scarcely at all by any other European Power. Occasionally, at
intervals, some statesman like Colbert in France or Alberoni in Spain
had more than an inkling of the truth ; but no nation except England
made deliberate and sustained efforts with a view to maritime develop-
ment. Even England did so rather by instinct than by insight.
Instinct led her to take measures, first for expanding, and secondly
for protecting her sea-borne trade ; and these measures proved to be
just those required for the establishment of a world- wide Empire
based on sea power. But it was only by slow degrees that she gained
insight into the significance of this commercial policy in relation to
empire.

Of this blindness to the true principles of maritime policy, the
taking of Gibraltar and its history during the following three-quarters
of a century afford a striking illustration. Just as the vast import-
ance of its acquisition was at the time underrated both by England
and Spain, so its actual capture by the former was an afterthought,
and (it may almost be said) an accident. It became a British posses-
sion in the first instance because at a time when we happened to be
at war with one of the rival claimants to the Spanish throne our
admiral in the Mediterranean happened to have no particular objective
in view, and, having failed in his only enterprise of that year, was

1904 OUR BI-CENTENARY ON THE BOCK 183

unwilling to return home with a fine fleet that had done nothing for
the honour of the flag. So he thought he might as well make an attack
on Gibraltar as do anything else. Nevertheless, his action has to be
reckoned among the notable ' deeds that won the Empire,' and one
that on its bi-centenary deserves to be had in remembrance. Com-
pared with Wolfe's memorable exploit fifty-five years later, Rooke's
achievement in 1704 was less heroic and illustrious in a military sense,
and produced results less conspicuous at the moment. But if it did
not, like the storming of Quebec, accomplish the conquest of half a
continent, nor add an immense territory to the dominions of the
Crown, the acquisition of Gibraltar was destined to have a still more
far-reaching influence in building up and rendering secure for the
future the maritime power, and with it the over-sea empire, of Great
Britain.

England became involved in the war of the Spanish Succession,
in which this famous episode occurred, within two months of the
accession of Queen Anne. One of the first acts of the new Sovereign
was to appoint her consort, Prince George of Denmark, to the office
of Lord High Admiral. At the same time Sir George Rooke became
* Vice-Admiral of England,' and received in addition the high-sounding
title of ' Lieutenant of the Admiralty of England and Lieutenant of
the fleets and seas of this Kingdom.' He was also made a member
of a Council established to assist Prince George in the execution of his
office. His administrative duties at the Admiralty did not, however,
prevent his taking command of a fleet as soon as war was declared.
Sir George Rooke was at this time an officer who had seen a lot of
active service in which he had won distinction, though for political
reasons he had not received as much credit as he deserved. Thirty
years before, while still a lieutenant, he had made his mark in the
wars against the Dutch. He it was who as Commodore commanded
the squadron that convoyed Kirke to the Foyle in 1689, and raised
the siege of Londonderry. In the following year, having been pro-
moted to flag rank, he took part in the battle of Beachy Head, and at
La Hogue he performed a brilliant exploit in following the French
inshore and burning their men-of-war and transports — a service for
which he was rewarded by the honour of knighthood from William the
Third when the King shortly afterwards dined on board his flagship
at Portsmouth. Since that date Rooke had been in command of fleets
in the Mediterranean and the Channel, besides holding the appoint-
ment of a Lord of the Admiralty ; and so recently as the year 1700 in
conjunction with a Swedish squadron had forced the Danes to come
to terms with Charles the Twelfth.

There was therefore no British naval officer with a higher reputa-
tion than Sir George Rooke when the disputed succession to the
Spanish crown led to a declaration of war by England against France
and Spain on the 14th of May (N.S.) 1702. The events of the first

184 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

two years of the war do not concern us here, though it may be men-
tioned that Rooke received the thanks of the House of Commons —
he was himself member for Portsmouth — for his success in destroying
the Spanish treasure-ships in the harbour of Vigo. In the beginning
of 1704 he was ordered to escort to Lisbon the Archduke Charles, who
had proclaimed himself King of Spain and had resolved to proceed in
person to the Peninsula to assert his rights. A powerful fleet was
commissioned for this service, but it was found impossible to fit out
all the ships by the appointed date, so Sir Cloudesley Shovel was placed
in command of a second squadron with orders to follow the Com-
mander-in- Chief as quickly as possible. After Rooke sailed informa-
tion reached the Admiralty that a French fleet was preparing to sail
from Brest. Shovel thereupon received fresh orders to proceed to
Brest and blockade it. He was too late, however, to do this, and
was obliged to follow in the wake of the French in the hope of eluding
them and effecting a junction with Rooke somewhere near the Straits
of Gibraltar. Rooke, meantime, had reached Lisbon without falling
in with an enemy, and landed the Archduke ' after two days had been
spent in adjusting the ceremonial ' for conducting 'His Catholic Majesty
Charles the Third' from the flagship to the shore. The admiral
then spent a month cruising off the Spanish and Portuguese coasts in
search of a Spanish fleet returning from the West Indies. But early
in May orders reached him from home to go on to the Mediterranean
to relieve Nice and Villafranca, which were in danger of falling into
the hands of the French. This move was not at all to the liking of
Charles the Third, who was chiefly intent on securing his own position
in Spain, and accordingly ' the admiral was extremely, pressed by his
Catholic Majesty to undertake somewhat in his favour.' Rooke's
orders were explicit, and he knew he might incur a heavy respon-
sibility by delaying their execution. But he was hampered by the
additional absurd instructions to undertake nothing without the con-
sent of the Kings of Spain and Portugal, who could seldom agree on
anything whatever. Anyhow, he consented to make an attempt on
Barcelona, where it was represented to him that the inhabitants were
ready to declare for the Austrian candidate as soon as he appeared
before the city. This soon proved to be a complete delusion, and the
attempt to reduce the place was a fiasco.

Ten days after this abortive undertaking Rooke learnt the where-
abouts of the French fleet from Brest, and, although still without Sir
Cloudesley Shovel's reinforcements, he gave chase to the French and
succeeded in driving them into Toulon. He next passed the Straits
into the Atlantic once more, and on the 26th of June was joined at
last by Shovel's squadron off Lagos. The combined fleet then con-
tinued aimlessly cruising about while awaiting orders from home.
But, as the old eighteenth- century naval chronicler puts it, ' Sir George
Rooke being very sensible of the reflections that would fall upon him,

1904 OUR BI-CENTENAEY ON THE EOCK 185

if, having so considerable a fleet under his command, he spent the
summer in doing nothing of importance,' he called a council of war in
the Tetuan roadstead on the 27th of July. Several schemes for
doing ' something of importance ' were discussed and found im-
practicable ; the admiral ' declared that he thought it requisite that
they should resolve upon some service or other, and after a long
debate it was carried to make a sudden and vigorous attempt upon
Gibraltar.' Three reasons were given for this decision. ' First,
because in the condition the place then was, there was some pro-
bability of taking it ; which in case it had been properly provided,
and there had been in it a numerous garrison, would have been im-
possible. Secondly, because the possession of that place was of
infinite importance during the present war. Thirdly, because the
taking of this place would give a lustre to the Queen's arms, and
possibly dispose the Spaniards to favour the cause of King Charles.'

On the 1st of August the fleet, which included a few Dutch ships,
appeared off Gibraltar. The tactics to be employed for reducing the
stronghold were dictated by the configuration of the promontory.
Nor was it the first time that such a plan for its capture had been
devised by an English admiral. Half a century earlier, in Cromwell's
time, Admiral Montague, when serving under Blake in the Mediter-
ranean, had sent a memorandum to Secretary Thurloe containing a
proposal for an attack on Gibraltar ' as a place that would be of great
utility in case it could be reduced.' The only way of taking it, he
added, was ' to land a body of forces on the isthmus, and thereby
cut off communication of the town with the main ; and in this situa-
tion to make a brisk attempt upon the place.' Curiously enough
this suggestion' came to nothing in 1656, because soldiers were not to
be had for the purpose and the British sailors of that day could not
be trusted, since ' the hasty disposition of the seamen rendered them
unfit to perform any effectual service on shore.' But in 1704 things
had changed in this respect, and Rooke put in execution with complete
success Montague's plan, which it will have been noticed was similar
in principle to that of the Japanese at Port Arthur two hundred years
afterwards. Accordingly the same day that the fleet arrived a force of
1,800 English and Dutch marines under the Prince of Hesse were put
ashore ' on the neck of land to the northward of the town.' How
strange, it may be observed in passing, it must have seemed to English
and Dutch sailors of that day to find themselves actually fighting
together as allies of ' his Catholic Majesty ' of Spain, in whose name
the Governor of the fortress was called upon to surrender it to the
Prince of Hesse. This demand being of course refused, Sir George
Rooke ordered his captains to take up positions for bombarding the
place next day. In the morning of the 2nd of August the wind was
unfavourable for the necessary evolutions of the ships, so it was
late in the afternoon before they got into their appointed places.

186 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY Aug.

Meantime, ' to amuse the enemy,' as Rooke quaintly phrased it in his
despatch, ' Captain Whitaker was sent in with some boats who burnt
a French privateer of twelve guns at the mole.' At daybreak on the
3rd the bombardment began. So furious was the cannonade that
we are told more than 15,000 rounds were fired in five or six hours ;
' insomuch that the enemy were soon beat from their guns, especially
at the South Molehead.' At this juncture Rooke signalled to Captain
Whitaker — presumably for the better ' amusement ' of the enemy —
to take in all the boats and drive the defenders from their fortified
position on the mole. This order was so promptly obeyed by two
captains, Jumper and Hicks, who were already close inshore with
their pinnaces, that before the rest of the boats could take part the
fortifications were in their possession, though with the loss of two
lieutenants and 100 men killed and wounded by the springing of a
mine by the Spaniards. The survivors of the storming party held
their ground, however, till supported by Whitaker, whose blue-
jackets were not long in forcing their way into a redoubt between
the mole and the town, the possession of which by the English appears
to have rendered the whole fortress untenable ; for on receiving ' a
peremptory summons ' now sent him by the Prince of Hesse at Rooke's
instance, the Governor made no further attempt at defence. The
following morning, the 4th of August 1704, the capitulation was
signed, and the troops under the Prince of Hesse marched in and
occupied the fortress the same day.

It does not appear that the assailants suffered any very heavy
loss ; in fact, there is no doubt that the defence of the Spanish garrison
was a tame affair. The French, indeed, anxious to minimise the
importance of Rooke's success, asserted that the Spaniards had
neither garrison nor guns on the Rock. This, however, was clearly
not the fact ; for Rooke, in his report to the Admiralty, expressly
said * the town is extremely strong and had 100 guns mounted, all
facing the sea and the two narrow passes to the land, and was well
supplied with ammunition.' This seems hardly consistent perhaps
with the alleged state of affairs that moved the Council of War at
Tetuan to make the attack — namely, that the weak and unprovided
condition of the garrison offered a prospect of success which would
otherwise have been out of the question ; and it is possible that Rooke
was as willing to magnify his work after the event as his enemies
were to discount it. On the other hand it is possible that the natural
strength of the place and the state of its equipment had not been
realised until it was seen from inside. This explanation of the
apparent inconsistency is supported by the opinion of the military
officers, who after inspecting the fortifications declared that ' fifty
men might have defended those works against thousands,' and that
the place had only fallen because .' there never was such an attack as
the seamen made.'

1904 OUR BICENTENARY ON THE BOCK 187

The Union Jack was hoisted by Rooke's sailors as soon as they had
established themselves on the mole ; but the capitulation was accepted
in the name of Charles the Third, to whom the soldiers "and inhabitants,
in accordance with one of its articles, had to take an oath of allegiance.
The fact that at the close of the war, nine years later, England insisted
on retaining the fortress in her own hands and obtaining a formal
cession of it from Spain might be taken as proof that the experience
of the war had taught its true value, were it not for the subsequent
proposals already mentioned for giving it back in return for com-
paratively worthless concessions elsewhere. Be that as it may, for
the time being at all events the Prince of Hesse was left in command
of the garrison to hold the place for his Catholic Majesty, while the
English fleet sailed away quite content with the ' something of im-
portance ' accomplished for the purpose of ' giving a lustre to the
Queen's arms.'

The taking of Gibraltar was immediately followed by the battle
of Malaga, which, according to Dr. John Campbell, Rooke's biographer,
finally ' decided the empire of the sea,' an opinion practically endorsed
by the French historian, Martin. Nevertheless, when Sir George
Rooke shortly afterwards returned home, attempts were made, in a
spirit with which we have been only too familiar in more recent times,
to belittle his services for party reasons. The reign of the Revolu-
tionary Whigs was not yet at an end. Rooke had been elected member
for Portsmouth in 1698, and in Parliament had committed the un-
pardonable offence of Noting mostly with those that were called
Tories.' For this offence William the Third had been pressed to
remove him from his seat at the Admiralty Board, but honourably
refused to do so. In 1704 he was still in bad odour with the
ruling party, who accordingly resented the very mention of
Gibraltar or Malaga in the same breath with the triumph of the
great Whig hero at Blenheim, which occurred in the same year.
The Commons insisted all the same on coupling the victories by
land and sea in an address of congratulation to the Crown, though
the expressions used gave great offence ' to many of the warmest
friends of the Ministry.' In the House of Lords, where Whig influence
remained more powerful than in the Lower House, Rooke's services
were passed over altogether in silence ; and the rancour of party spirit
was such that in the same year in which he placed in the hands of his
countrymen the key of the Mediterranean and the empire of the
sea, he found himself obliged to retire into private life. He never
was employed again. And just as, from motives of party, the Whig
politicians thus treated him with injustice and neglect, so for the
same reason the Whig historian perpetuated the injustice to his
memory. Bishop Burnet persistently belittled the exploits, falsified
the facts, and misrepresented the motives of Sir George Rooke's
career. Rooke did not, it need hardly be said, possess the genius of

188 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

a Marlborough, and none of his deeds can justly be compared for a
moment from a military standpoint with Blenheim or Ramillies ; but
after making all allowance for the historical importance of Marl-
borough's illustrious victories in putting a check to the menacing
power of France, it may be questioned whether any of them con-
ferred so lasting a benefit on the British Empire as the happy-go-
lucky enterprise of his naval contemporary whose very name is by
many scarcely remembered to-day, though the fruit of his action is
one of our most cherished possessions after two hundred years, while
the ambition and the schemes of Louis the Fourteenth have long since
passed into limbo. More fit to be remembered than the churlish jealousy
of bygone Whigs, whether politician or historian, is the judgment of the
weightiest modern authority on the relation between sea power and
empire ; and at this time of the bi-centenary of our occupation of the
Rock we may well bear his words in mind. ' The English possession
of Gibraltar,' writes Captain Mahan, ' dates from the 4th of August
1704, and the deed rightly keeps alive the name of Rooke, to whose
judgment and fearlessness of responsibility England owes the key of
the Mediterranean.' l

RONALD McNEiLL.

1 The Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 210.

1904

BRITISH SHIPPING AND FISCAL REFORM

No industry is more vitally important than shipping to the welfare
of Great Britain, and none more susceptible to the attack of foreign
competition. Its decadence would bring widespread and serious
distress to the working people of our country ; in fact it is a truism
that the decline of the supremacy of the mercantile marine must
mean the decline of Great Britain as an empire.

The prevailing desire in the country for ' cheapness ' — i.e. the wish
to pay down at the moment as little cash as possible without thinking
where such economy may lead — seems to constitute a national danger.
For instance, some British shipbuilders have imported German
forgings and castings at prices 30 per cent, below their cost of manu-
facture in this country ; and by so doing they have increased the
tendency to sacrifice the primary processes of manufacture, which
form the great field of employment of our people.

There can be no doubt that once our employers of labour have
been induced to exchange the primary processes of manufacture for
that of fitting together ready-made parts, we shall become increasingly
dependent upon the foreigner not merely for the supply, but also for
the price of our shipbuilding materials.

To-day the producing capacity of German iron and steel firms is
nine times as great as it was twenty- two years ago. There are twenty-
one steel-works fitted out with heavy bar-rolling appliances, and in
the matter of forgings and castings the industry is ahead of the ship-
building trade, thus placing it in a favourable position to cater for
work abroad.

Foreign merchants do not sell their goods in this country below
the cost of production in Britain, and often below the cost of pro-
duction to themselves, without having some definite purpose in view.
Their policy is not one of charity, but is one well calculated to capture
our markets. So long as our manufacturers turn out iron and steel
goods similar to those which foreigners export, it will be necessary
for the latter, as a matter of competition, to sell lower than the British

VOL. LVI— No. 330 189 0

190 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY Aug.

prices. This they are able to do by means of home bounties and
protective tariffs, which leave a sufficiently large profit on their home
sales to recoup any loss on their exports and give a net gain on their
total output.

It is often asserted that to stop by means of a tariff the unlimited
importation of these foreign manufactures must certainly lead to
handicapping British shipbuilders in their competition for orders.
As an example of such argument the following is a paragraph taken
from the Glasgow Herald Supplement on the year's (1903) shipbuilding
and engineering.

Looking at the position in this light, there can only be one answer to the
question. Building material cannot be too cheap, and if foreign makers can
supply it at less cost than our own, it is not only to builders' interests but
for the national benefit that the foreign material be used. No doubt it is
' hard lines ' for home makers, but they are not the men to sit down under
it. New circumstances and new forces will stimulate new methods and
economies.

Surely there never was a more flagrant example of how ' spurious
free trade ' argument can be made to subserve private ends, of how
it can be utilised to favour one class, or one industry, at the expense
of another, of how it can by selfish application sap away the prosperity
of a nation ; for it certainly would not be to the national benefit to
sacrifice the prime industries of the land.

Another way in which British shipping stands to lose heavily
is by the increasing amount of partly finished stuff it brings to this
country in place of raw material.

Kaw material as a rule is of much greater bulk and weight than
the semi-masiufactured article, and therefore needs a greater amount
of transport. An eminent authority recently gave figures in the Western
Mail showing how the importation into Newport (Wales) of 200,000
tons of German steel, instead of the material to manufacture it from,
had caused a loss to shipowners of not less than 39,OOOZ. in freights.
This can be readily believed when it is said that it requires about
30,000 tons of hematite ore to manufacture 10,000 tons of steel, not
to mention the need of some 25,000 tons of coal and coke for that
manufacture.

Thus in the interest of prosperous employment for the people it
is essential that British shipping should preserve its ascendency ; and
in no way allow foreign nations to usurp its carrying power, ship-
building, or allied industries.

In order to see how shipping legislation may be rendered less
oppressive to shipowners it is essential to consider how they are unduly
handicapped by the laws of to-day.

A prime grievance is the load-line restriction to which British
ships, when laden, are bound to conform, while foreign vessels are

1904 BEITISH SHIPPING AND FISCAL EEFOEM 191

not made to comply with the Act, with the consequence that foreign
vessels of the same carrying capacity as British ones are enabled to
carry larger cargoes and earn greater profits.

As an illustration we have the case given in the report of the Select
Committee on Shipping Subsidies (year 1901) of a ship which, while
trading under the British flag, was limited to a carrying capacity of
1825 tons ; but when sold to the Germans actually traded into Liver-
pool with the cargo of 2100 tons, or with an excess of 15 per cent.
over her former carrying capacity.

Another difference is that between the British and foreign regis-
tered tonnage of a vessel, which in the matter of paying dues seriously
mulcts the shipowners of this country. Thus two vessels may have
exactly the same cargo-carrying capacity ; but the British ship would
by our measurement be registered at 2000 tons, while the foreign
vessel is registered at 1800 tons ; thus causing the British vessel to
pay dues on 200 tons more than the foreigner, although in reality both
ships are of the same size.

Mr. Beasley, general manager of the Taff Railway Company,
South Wales, has given some valuable figures in the Times, which
show that out of 100 vessels previously British-owned, but now belong-
ing to seven foreign nations, the difference between the former and
latter registration varies between 12 and 10 per cent. Thus, on the
aggregate tonnage of the 100 vessels, amounting to 158,000 tons, the
foreign registration shows 17,617 tons less — upon which to levy dues
— than when the ships were on the British register.

The President of the Board of Trade has expressed recently his
intention of dealing with such unfairness ; but it is not so much fresh
legislation that is wanted as official activity.

Section 84 of the Merchant Shipping Act already provides that
' where the tonnage of any foreign ships materially differs from that
which would be the tonnage under the British flag she may be re-
measured under the terms of the Act.'

But unless a case is glaringly apparent steps of that kind are
seldom if ever taken. This is the more to be regretted, for when ship-
ping competition is so fierce, and the margin between profit and loss
so small, it seems imperative to adopt some policy which will place
all foreign shipping when trading in British waters on at least the
same footing as that of our own country.

When advocating ' a fair field and no favour ' the exclusion of
British vessels from certain foreign coastal trades must be taken into
account. At present every nation is allowed absolute free trade on
the coasts of the United Kingdom, and also on those of the Crown
colonies and dependencies, as well as between the colonies and the
mother country. Most of the self-governing colonies also allow free
trade on their coasts ; but Canada stipulates that such privilege is
granted solely on condition of reciprocity,

o 2

192 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY Aug.

On the other hand, British shipping is excluded from the home
coasting trade of the following countries : United States of America
(on both coasts, Atlantic and Pacific ; and even on voyages extending
from coast to coast), Russia (on all coasts, and even on voyages extend-
ing from ports in the Baltic to ports, like Vladivostock, in the East),
France, Spain, Portugal. It is also excluded from trading between
the following countries and their possessions : France and her
Algerian trade (free trade exists between France, Guadaloupe, Mada-
gascar, and other island colonies, but other shipping is specially
taxed) ; United States of America (trade to Philippine ports open
to British and Spanish vessels till 1909. But on trade between
Philippine ports and U.S.A. special duties are levied on goods
when carried in foreign or British ships); Spain (handicapped
by levying surtaxes on produce brought home in foreign hulls) ;
Portugal (excepting those possessions exempted by special decrees) ;
Russia.

When we consider the enormous power we possess in our shipping
for negotiation, it seems strange that in 1854 we should have abolished
the old navigation laws, and removed all power of taxing foreign
shipping without retaining a clause in favour of reciprocity. In the
days of old the reservation of coastal trade to national keels was well
recognised as one of the most powerful and promising arguments for
use in demanding an open market. Alexander Hamilton, the great
American statesman, laid it down as an essential to be included in
the articles of the United States Constitution.

In advocating the acceptance of such a policy he wrote in his
paper, the Federalist, November 1787, thus :

Suppose for instance we had a Government in America capable of exclud-
ing Great Britain (with whom we have at present no treaty of commerce) from
all our ports, what would be the probable operation of this step upon her
politics? Would it not enable us to negotiate, with the fairest prospect of
success, for commercial privileges of the most valuable and extensive kind in
the dominions of that Kingdom ? . . . Such a point gained from the British
Government, and which could not be expected without an equivalent in exemp-
tions and immunities in our markets, would be likely to have a correspondent
effect on the conduct of other nations, who would not be inclined to see them-
selves altogether supplanted in our trade.

If we simply exchange the names of the countries mentioned above,
and speak of Britain where Hamilton says America, and vice versa,
no more lucid or cogent appeal in favour of reserving British coastal
trade to British shipping excepting on conditions of reciprocity could
be put forward.

In the famous Board of Trade Blue-book, C. D. 1761, ' British and
Foreign Trade, and Industrial Conditions,' figures are given showing
the classification of the foreign tonnage participating in the trade
between the United Kingdom and British colonies and possessions,

1904 BEITISH SHIPPING AND FISCAL BEFOEM 193

and showing to what extent that trade is shared by countries giving
free trading to British ships on their coasts or refusing it.

In 1902 the total trade between the United Kingdom colonies
and possessions amounted to 13,250,000 tons l (11,750,000 British,
1,500,000 foreign). Of the foreign tonnage 94 per cent, was that of
countries granting open coastal trade to British ships ; G per cent,
was that of countries refusing such privilege.

Hence it follows that were ' reciprocity ' made a test of admission
to British, colonial, and coasting trade, 5 or 6 per cent, of the foreign
shipping now engaged in that trade would be excluded until such time
as arrangements were made to the mutual benefit.

The power of laying embargo is pregnant with great possibilities.

A considerable proportion of foreign tonnage is enabled to trade
solely through the receipt of State-aid. The following table shows
approximately the amount of subsidy granted by the various foreign
Governments to their national shipping ;

£

United States 357,723

France (mails and bounties) . - . . . . 1,787,270

Germany (mail subsidies) 400,000

Italy (mails and bounties) 500,000

Eussia (mails and bounties) 374,700

Austria-Hungary (mails and bounties) . . . 400,000

Portugal (mail subsidies) 13,000

Netherlands „ 75,000

Norway „ 30,000

Sweden „ 17,000

Denmark „ 20,000

Japan (mail and bounties) 700,000

There can be no doubt as to what is the object aimed at by the
Governments granting these bounties. It is first to develop their national
marines both as a source of industry and as a support to their naval
power. In the second place, to undercut British shipping, and so
secure a portion of this country's trade. If such were not the inten-
tion, it would be a matter of surprise that so many bounty-fed vessels
are to be seen in British ports, such as Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore,
Hongkong, Durban, Melbourne, and Sydney. These subsidies cover
either all or some of the following expenses : interest on capital
borrowed by the shipping companies, depreciation, insurance of the
vessels, crews' wages and stores, and in consequence enable foreign
shipowners to carry cargoes at a rate of freight which would ruin
unsubsidised British shipping.

The evidence given by Sir Henry Beyne, K.C.M.G., before the
Parliamentary Select Committee on steamships subsidies in 1901,
throws valuable light on this matter. He quoted instances in which
he knew of French sailing ships of about 3200 tons earning bounties

1 These figures do not refer to inter -trading between the colonies and possessions.

194

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Aug.

of 4000L per annum ; and certain vessels in particular earning bounties
as follows :

Per cent.

. 34
. 37

Charles Gounod on value of vessel .
General Neumayer „ ,,

Per cent.

. 17 on value of shares
. 18*

Heine Blanche

22

44

The effect of these vessels seeking cargoes in a port where British
ships are lying cannot be otherwise than disadvantageous to the
latter, and though working at a loss, they are (to use an Irishism)
able to pay dividends. To illustrate how the reservation of the
imperial coastal trade to British vessels, excepting on conditions of
reciprocity, could be made a powerful means of securing free and fair
competition, take the case of French ships trading along the British
East and West African coasts.

The subsidies paid in these trades by France are :

£

East Africa and Indian Ocean 76,985

And West Coast of Africa 20,036

Were these ships interdicted from trading along British African coasts
until such time as France gave reciprocal permission to British ship-
owners to trade in her Franco-Algerian trade, there can be little
doubt that the French ships would remain on that portion of the
coast left open to them either at great loss, or with a great increase in
their subsidies ; either of which conditions could not but react adversely
upon the national finance.

If to some people the policy of ' real free trade ' is distasteful,
there remains an alternative measure, and that is to levy a special
duty on all subsidised flags equivalent to the amount of their
subsidy. By either method of differential treatment increased trade
under fair conditions would be assured ; for no nation can afford to
bolster up indefinitely such an industry as the sailing of unprofitable
ships.

The severity of foreign shipping competition has certainly some
bearing on the question of the decrease of British sailors in the mer-
cantile marine. One effect has been to prevent the wages of the
seafarer from rising in the same degree that they have in employ-
ments on shore, and thus the sea has ceased to tempt young men
to adopt it as their career in life in the same way as it used to do.

In the evidence given before the committee recently appointed by
the Board of Trade to enquire into questions affecting the mercan-
tile marine ; it was shown how British sailors had decreased steadily
from 1890 to 1901, and how foreign (other than Asiatic) sailors had
steadily increased thus :

—

1890

1895

1901

British
Foreign (exclusive of Asiatics)

165,827
27,035

158,983
32,045

151,376
37,174

1904 BRITISH SHIPPING AND FISCAL EEFOEM 195

The following table illustrates tlie advance of wages made relatively
in shore and sea life :

Trade

1850

I860

1897

Increase of

s.

s.

s. d.

Per cent.

( Carpenters

104

112

142 8

38

Ashore < Compositors

120

120

140 0

16

[_ Bricklayers

116

128

168 0

45

fAble Seaman —

Sea . <^ Sail

45

50

60 0

33

L Fireman

79

85

85 0

7

To pay higher wages in British ships is now impossible ; the same
may be said indeed of any reform that calls for expenditure on the
part of the shipowner. When once it is recognised that the important
thing is not so much what wages are paid for, as where they come
from, it will not be difficult to see the truth of this statement. The
capitalist shipowner is the wage fund of the seaman. So long as the
shipowner lives, so long does the wage fund last, and is available for
the purchase of labour. If through good trade the shipowner grows
rich, the wage fund grows with him ; if through a surplus of tonnage,
severe competition, or trade depression, he grows poorer, the wage
fund dwindles too. The main point then is to preserve the wage fund
at the back of the shipowner ; and having done that, the wage-earners
have ample power through combination to ensure that they get their
share of ' the better times ' that follow.

If British shipowners were supported, in times of need, by a policy
possessing retaliatory power against those nations which sought to
ruin their trade by artificial means, there can be little hesitation in
saying that seafaring would become more popular as it became more
profitable, and would once again resume its position as the calling of
those who should form the backbone of the navy and the nation.

The progress of British shipping forms an interesting study. In
short, it may be said that prior to 1805 Britain maintained her supre-
macy through the zeal and courage of her naval commanders ; subse-
quent to Trafalgar through the navigation laws — in other, words, through
legislative prohibition to import goods to British shores in foreign
ships. After the repeal of the navigation laws in 1854, a set-back
occurred to British shipping, with a concurrent augmentation in foreign
shipping. Indeed, so great was the impetus given to alien shipping by
the repeal that the foreign tonnage visiting British ports was almost
doubled in a decade.

Then came the introduction of iron in place of wood for shipbuilding,
which restored once more to Britain her leading position as a maritime
power.

When ships were built of wood, and the motive power was sail,
timber had to be imported with which to build the vessels, as also
the hemp, cordage, and flax for setting up the rigging and sails.

196 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY Aug.

But when iron came to be used, our shipbuilders were able to
depend upon home supplies of iron ore, lime, and coal, all of which
are found in the United Kingdom. Other nations might be able to
build wooden ships cheaper than we ; but none could compete in the
price of an iron or steel steamer. Hence the dawn of the iron age
enabled Britain to recover her decline following on the repeal of the
navigation laws.

The annexed figures, gleaned from a paper read before the Royal
Statistical Society by Sir John Glover, will show the varying changes
as described.

Table showing percentage of foreign tonnage as compared with
British tonnage entered and cleared in British ports :

Foreign British
Per cent. Per cent.

1848 (Previous to the repeal of the navigation laws) . 28-8 71-2

1860 (Effect of the repeal) 41-8 58'2

1870 (Subsequent to the introduction of iron in ship-
building) 29-8 70-2

With the greater portion of the world's ' carrying power ' in
British hands, it is not surprising that British trade should have
developed in greater proportion, and with more rapidity, than the
commerce of all other nations.

During the twenty years between 1860 and 1880 railway transport
was still in the first stage of development. Carriage by sea for goods in
quantity was by far the cheapest and most convenient mode of trans-
port. British shipowners were able by reason of earning ' double
freights ' (outward as well as inward cargoes) to allow of low cost of
carriage for home merchandise. Hence British merchants, through
British maritime supremacy, were able to exploit their wares in foreign
and neutral markets with such advantages in their favour as pro-
hibited all other nations from competition.

In the early days of continental manufacturing activity there
was a tremendous demand for British coal, which export formed
a paying ballast cargo, and enabled vessels to return with
' imports ' of rarw material at a lower rate of freight than they would
otherwise have been able to do. But it seems doubtful whether
coal will long continue as a staple export of this country. As new
fuels and more economical methods of propulsion are devised, the
demand for coal will be restricted, and what demand there is will be
more readily and more cheaply supplied from foreign or colonial pits
than from those in the United Kingdom.

Already Germany, the United States of America, Australia,
Belgium, Japan, India, Natal, and New Zealand export coal in ever-
increasing quantities.

This cheapness given by ' export cargoes ' to imports has a great
and beneficial effect upon the well-being of the people, both as regards
their food and employment ; and it is essential for the continued pre-

1904 BBITISH SHIPPING AND FISCAL REFORM 197

valence of ' cheapness,' and for the competitive power of the mercan-
tile marine, that ' export cargoes ' of some sort should be found for
British shipping. If it is not permanently possible to put our trust
in coal, then we should strive all we can to develop our manufactures.

Of recent years there has been a marked increase in the amount
of competitive foreign tonnage afloat, mainly due to the develop-
ment of foreign shipbuilding. One result is that a distinct advance
has taken place in regard to the amount of carrying which certain
nations do of their own trade.

The following table gives an idea of this, showing as it does the
percentage of tonnage entered and cleared under the national flag of
the total tonnage entered and cleared in the ports of the countries
named, and also showing the percentage of British tonnage entered
and cleared in the same ports.

16

90

1900

Country

_

National

British

National British

Eussia

7-3

55-1

10-3 44-7

British decrease.

Norway

631

16-3

66-1 12-0

British decrease.

Sweden

33-7

22-1

38-3 12-0

British decrease.

Germany

42-4

36-6

47-5 29-9

British decrease.

Italy .

24-8

48-4

48-8 23-8

British decrease.

U.S.A.

22-1

52-8

16-9 52-8

Remained the same.

The point to be noted is that as foreign tonnage increased and came
into competition with British tonnage, the latter had to give way.

When one remembers that there is a limit to the demand for carry-
ing capacity in the world, and that the favour of a cargo falls to the
vessel that will carry it at the lowest rate of freight, it is not sur-
prising that some people should question whether, if things go on as
they are going now without alteration or change, the dominating
position of British shipping may not be seriously undermined.

In times gone by we obtained our strength from within the United
Kingdom — from iron ore and coal. But these old-time buttresses
have lost their efficacy. Let us alter our policy and draw our strength
to-day from an empire united commercially.* Let us aim at a
federation framed not merely in regard to personal or insular pro-
sperity, but having as its basis the advancement and defence of trade
on broad and reciprocal lines, and which we should be ready to share
with all who meet us in freedom and fairness.

Some may object to reciprocal measures because they see in them
a leaning towards protection. Others oppose such reform because
they do not imagine it can benefit this or that industry. And others,
again, because they do not believe in adapting the policy of their
day to suit the circumstances of their time ; trusting rather to fortune
to bring all things right in the end.

To such as these the words of Alexander Hamilton must come with

198

Aug.

disconcerting emphasis, for he says : ' It is too much characteristic of
our national temper to be ingenious in finding out and magnifying
the minutest disadvantages ; and to reject measures of evident utility,
even of necessity, to avoid trivial and sometimes imaginary evils.
We seem not to reflect that in human society there is scarcely any
plan, however salutary to the whole and to every part, by the share
each has in the common prosperity, but in one way or another, and
under particular circumstances, will operate more to the benefit of
some parts than of others. Unless we can overcome this narrow dis-
position, and learn to estimate measures by their general tendencies,
we shall never be a great or a happy people, if we remain a people
at all.'

GRAHAM.

1904

THE LIBERAL PRESS
AND THE LIBERAL PARTY

To one who, for some time past, has not only been cultivating a con-
stituency of his own, but has, in addition, been paying electioneering
visits to other constituencies, the least satisfactory feature of the
Liberal position in the country is the inefficiency of its press. It is
a parrot cry — particularly on the part of those having no great depth
of conviction themselves — that the press has ceased to influence the
country ; that people merely read papers for their news, and not for
their opinions ; and that, in short, conductors of newspapers and their
leader-writers are, as professed guides and teachers, found out and
played out. This is probably no more true nowadays than it has
been since organs of public opinion existed. My own experience
has convinced me that the man who does not read opinions in daily
or weekly papers and reviews is, in nine cases out of ten, a man having
neither knowledge nor views on public questions ; in the tenth case
his views are a mere collection of crudities or a reflection of those
he hears expressed around him, in office, workshop, factory, public
conveyance, or club. They have no fixed quality, they are never
informed, and have rarely even the vitality of prejudices. The
point indeed is hardly worth labouring, and no one who takes the
trouble to test the origin of the average man's views can fail to find
that they spring from the acceptance or the rejection of the opinions
laid down in newspapers.

How could it be otherwise ? What I find the normal busy man
does not read in the newspapers are the Parliamentary reports, not
even in the attenuated form in which they are given in many of the
Tory organs, and in all the so-called leading Liberal papers — with
the commendable exception of one or two of the principal provincial
journals. For this abstention the average man is certainly not to
be blamed, the attempt — if it may even be dignified by the name of
an attempt — to pack into a couple of columns reports of discussions
ranging over a wide variety of subjects, and lasting perhaps some
eight hours, merely resulting in a blurred impression that conveys
little or no meaning to the man who brings no special knowledge to
their perusal. Even the gentlemen whose mission it is, from the

199

200 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

Press Gallery of the House of Commons, to provide in narrative form
a running report of, and commentary on, the debates, seldom succeed
in conveying an adequate presentment of what has taken place. They
are hampered, in the first place, by space limitations, and in the
second — and this, perhaps, is the more important consideration of
the two — they are, for the most part, so much more interested in
personalities than in politics that one unfamiliar with the leading
personages in Parliament derives neither refreshment nor knowledge
from their chronicles. So far, therefore, as these two features of the
daily papers are concerned — where they exist at all — I agree that
they play very little part in the political education of newspaper
readers. There remain, therefore, as educational factors, the leading
article and the special article, and these, I am convinced, from inquiry
and observation, exert at the present time as much influence on the
general reader as they have done at any time in the history of the
popular press.

This much admitted, it is not surprising that Liberalism had until
the recent cataclysmal series of blunders on the part of the Govern-
ment, become a broken force, incapable of winning fresh converts
on its own merits, and mainly indebted for the foothold it contrived
to maintain to the recklessness and costliness of the Ministerial
policy.

For it is my purpose to show that much of the anti-Liberal feeling
that has distinguished politics in this country for nearly twenty years
past has been due to the general weakness of the Liberal press, and
to its very partially representative character. It has, during that
time, produced no really great journalist, and its conductors have
been content to shape their line of conduct by a more or less blind
following of individuals rather than by framing and enforcing a
distinctive policy. Of course there has been Mr. Stead, and if that
gentleman had had a less consuming vanity and had not mistaken
a somewhat crude emotionalism for pure reason, he might and pro-
bably would have acquired a reputation greater than that of any
journalist in this country. But Mr. Stead's amazing lack of stability —
amazing considering his tenacity and his perspicuity — made him, as
it has left him, a hot gospeller rather than a journalist-statesman.
And yet, amid the crowd of more commonplace mortals who have
conducted newspapers at any time during the past twenty years,
his is the only name that emerges from the ruck, and in this are to be
included not only Liberal but Tory editors.

To journalists themselves other names, and mostly those at the
head of the leading provincial papers, are familiar, but though the
heavier metal is undoubtedly to be found in the provinces, there is
hardly a single provincial editor whose name is known as a political
guide outside the area of his own town. But while the Conservative
press has been as barren as its Liberal counterpart, it has, up to quite

1004 THE LIBERAL PRESS AND THE PARTY 201

recently, had the good fortune to reflect a fairly constant element in
politics. This has to a large extent atoned for its commonplaceness
and its uninspiring character, and has made it a tolerably cohesive
force in the country. The Liberals, on the other hand, except for the
Konfliktszeit of 1892-95, three years of pitiful attempt tempered by
almost ceaseless intrigue of a particularly ignoble sort, have been
sheep without a shepherd, and as a result the Liberal press has been
swayed by this group or that, by this individual or the other. What
has been the consequence ? A press feebly groping for a policy, and
speaking with many voices — a more or less exact reflection indeed of
what has been found on the front Opposition Bench of Parliament
itself. It has been Roseberyite, Bannermanite, Morleyite, and even
Harcourtite, according as these great men took its transient fancy or
seemed like ' coming out on top.'

What wonder, then, that save for a few exceptions to be noted
hereafter, the provincial Liberal press has become feebler and feebler,
and in the smaller towns has almost ceased to exist, the little pro-
vincial editor, with no particular ideas of his own, and with no great
depth of conviction, adapting the course of his paper to the local
stream of tendency. Thus he saw, until recently, most of the public
offices, the knighthoods, the * gentry,' and even the shopkeepers
following the main stream of Toryism, and he damped down his Liberal
enthusiasm, when he had any, and ambled along with the larger
crowd. This is a process I have found repeated over and over again
in the smaller towns, and it has happened not infrequently in many
of the larger cities. There have, as already stated, been some notable
exceptions, and these — perhaps because they were farther removed
from the political centre of disturbance — have not only escaped the
indecisions and wobblings of their London contemporaries, but have
strengthened and solidified their position. Their influence, in con-
sequence, is immeasurably greater than that of the more pretentious
London papers.

At their head must still be placed the Manchester Guardian, the
vitality of which enabled it to emerge successfully from the well-nigh
disastrous situation it created for itself owing to its attitude over the
South African war. I cannot, of course, pretend to say how far this
attitude injured its financial prosperity ; but that it, for a time, almost
completely nullified its former great political influence is certain. It
now stands admittedly at the head of the press of the Midlands, alike
in influence and in circulation, and if it were possible to transplant it
bodily from Manchester to London — with the remodelling of certain
news features necessitated by the change of locus — London Liberalism
would be greatly the gainer. That Manchester has not been wholly
lost to Liberalism is due to the Guardian, and it will,^no doubt, when
the country has been given the opportunity of expressing its judgment
at the polls on that virtuous record of the Government which is tne

202 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

object of such smug self-complacency to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain,
become once more the authoritative voice of that long discredited
•* Manchesterthum ' that we had all thought had become a bygone.

It is less easy to award second place to the few remaining Liberal
provincial journals of note. Of first-class importance there are only
two — the Liverpool Post and the Glasgow Herald — though the Dundee
Advertiser, the solitary exponent of Liberalism of any note for the
whole of the north and east of Scotland, and the Sheffield Inde-
pendent remain sturdily Radical, even if their influence is not
far-reaching.

But it is in the old provincial homes of Liberalism that the defec-
tion of its press is most marked, a defection that must be pronounced
to be due, not so much to a real decline in Liberal convictions on
the part of the people, as to the rise of the halfpenny press. Up to
twenty years ago, when the daily press was as decorous as it was
often dull, the methods that have revolutionised our newspapers
would have made no successful appeal to the country at large. Their
authors were probably at that time in short frocks or knickerbockers,
and the bulk of their present readers were also either in the nursery
or attending one of the lower standards of the Board Schools. It
would be foolish, however, to rail against this product of a shallow,
hurried, and unthinking age. The most noteworthy fact in con-
nection with it is that the conductors and proprietors of Liberal news-
papers should have been entirely blind to the growth of this army of
potential newspaper readers, people with just sufficient education
to enable them to find interest in the events of the day, but with
intelligences so untrained that the only means of reaching them was
to make strident appeal to their emotions, through the medium of
platitude and claptrap. Fixity of views, honesty of purpose, mattered
little. What this great uninformed public wanted first of all was
news in brief compass, and more attractively presented than by the
older-fashioned papers. No doubt this represented the measure of
the intentions of the earliest promoters of the halfpenny press, and
they were probably driven in spite of themselves to the propagation
of political views and opinions — not always the same views and opinions,
but varying according to the signs or mood of the moment. And
meanwhile the more sedate and undoubtedly duller Liberal press,
alike in London and the provinces, refused to change its methods,
and left the guidance of this amorphous and undisciplined army to
its not too scrupulous opponents, until it found itself threatened with
extinction ; until in some cases individual newspapers realised that it
was too late even for a change of methods, and they had perforce to
consent to absorption or destruction. This want of alertness led in
the provinces to more than one of the large towns being deprived of
any Liberal journal of a representative character. Newcastle, that
old pillar of earnest Radicalism, has gone, the Newcastle Daily

1904 THE LIBERAL PEESS AND THE PARTY 203

Chronicle having been squeezed out by its younger and more vigorous
rivals, with the result that, from Glasgow to Bradford, there is no
representative Liberal daily newspaper. And even in Bradford,
where the political parties are about equally divided, and in the
neighbouring town of Leeds, where the Liberals had a not incon-
siderable majority at the last election, the party press has for some
time past been steadily losing ground.

In the Southern and Home counties, local Liberal journalism can
hardly be said to exist, the long spell of Tory Government having
driven nearly all the journalistic sheep into the Tory pasture. There
are towns in the Home Counties of sufficient importance to supporc
three or four weekly papers and perhaps an evening paper in addition,
in which the Liberals have no representative organ. No doubt the
accession of the Liberals to power would bring some of these weaklings
over to the Liberal side, but the battle that is to bring this about
has to be fought without their assistance, and for the most part
against their opposition, although many recent by-elections have
shown that the electorate is preponderatingly Liberal.

In the West the situation is even more anomalous. Passing over
Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, where the sparse and scattered nature
of the population does not encourage vigorous newspaper develop-
ment, we find the same Liberal journalistic inertia in Devon and
Cornwall, the most influential papers being Conservative in com-
plexion, although the Parliamentary representation of both counties
is overwhelmingly Liberal. This may seem to tell against my con-
tention that newspaper readers are influenced by the views expressed
in the journals they read. To this I would reply that, as almost
invariably happens, the readers have run ahead of their guides for
the many reasons that have contributed to weaken the present Govern-
ment in the country, and, with the timidity that distinguishes most
newspaper conductors, these latter are listening for the fully ex-
pressed voice of the country before changing their policy. If, there-
fore, as seems tolerably assured, the Liberal party emerges trium-
phantly from the next trial of strength at the polls, it will owe little
to the work and influence of the provincial Liberal press.

In London, the relative disproportion of the Liberal and Con-
servative daily papers — alike in numbers, in influence, and in cir-
culation— is no less marked. It is clear, indeed, that in spite of the
manifest revival of Liberalism in London, its representative press
has dwindled both in magnitude and in importance. The first step
in the downward path dates, it need hardly be said, from the time of
the Home Rule split. There were at that period only two Liberal
morning newspapers, the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle, and as
each took a different course on the Irish question, cohesion disap-
peared from the ranks of the party. Neither, it is true, has been
consistent in its attitude on Irish affairs, and each has, at different

204 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY Aug.

times, displayed a suspicious alacrity to declare Home Rule outside
practical politics.

But in this matter, the two papers may be said to have reflected
rather than formed the opinions held by the rank and file of the
party. At the present moment, though the Daily News refuses to
admit that the question can be shelved, and makes periodical excur-
sions into the open for the purpose of waving the tattered green flag,
and reminding non-Home Rulers that it has its eye on them, its
earnestly meant attempts to restrict the Liberal party to a drab and
sad type of Nonconformity and a nebulous but flighty form of Radical-
Socialism cannot be said to have been conspicuously successful.
But, notwithstanding a decided narrowness of outlook, and an over-
ready disposition to ban all who cannot ' bolt the bran ' of its peculiar
type of Liberalism, the Daily News has, since it reduced its price to a
halfpenny, grown greatly in circulation, and possibly also in influence.
It does not represent the Liberal party as a whole ; it would be difficult,
for example, for a Churchman, or a Liberal Roman Catholic — and
there are still some left — to find in it other than many causes of offence ;
but it is a gospel to a large section of Liberalism, and the party
would be in exceedingly bad case without it. In its recent growth
among the more earnest sections of Liberals, it has no doubt been
largely assisted by the newest development of the Daily Chronicle,
which in reducing its price to a halfpenny has relegated the serious
consideration of political and social questions to a very secondary
place. But where the Chronicle condescends to politics it certainly
makes a wider appeal to the party than its principal rival, and if
it did not overload its columns with the more meretricious side of
journalism ; if, in fact, it did not give up to things of no importance
about as large a proportion of its space as the Daily News devotes to
a narrow sectarianism, there is still no reason why it should not
become in London the really representative Liberal newspaper.
There remains, among the fighting forces of London Liberalism, the
Morning Leader, which, with a good circulation in the North, East,
and South-Eastern districts of the metropolis, has built up a new
class of Liberal — or, rather, Radical — readers. But no one of the
three papers in question can be said to make a strong, or even
a direct, appeal to the party at large, and they offer but a pitiful
contrast to the eight Conservative morning papers of the capital,
which, whatever their differences on points of detail in Conservative
policy, are united in support of the Unionist party.

In evening newspapers the contrast is equally marked, for while
the two halfpenny organs, the Star and the Echo, compare more than
favourably in conduct and influence with the two halfpenny Tory
papers, the Evening News and the Sun, the only heavier ordnance
the Liberals can oppose to the Globe, the Pall Mall Gazette, the
St. James's Gazette, and the Evening Standard is the Westminster Gazette.

1904 THE LIBERAL PRESS AND THE PARTY 205

Here, however, the superiority on the Tory side is merely in point of
numbers. Needless to refer to the enormous value of Mr. Gould's
cartoons, which, though limited in range of ideas, have been justly
described as one of the best assets of the Liberal party. Nothing,
indeed, could better attest to the dearth of real political cartoonists
on both sides than the fact that among the lesser men who essay this
form of pictorial art there is not one who comes within measurable
distance of the Westminster cartoonist. One feels that the only man
who could approach him, if he possessed the same political insight,
is Mr. E. J. Reed. But while the latter gentleman is a born artist,
Mr. Gould is a born politician, in whose equipment art occupies but
a secondary place. It would, however, be unjust to attribute the
entire political value of the Westminster to its cartoons. Partly, no
doubt, as a result of the uncertainty that has characterised the leading
columns of its two principal morning contemporaries for some years
past, the Westminster has come, in the minds of the more influential
section of Liberals, to represent a much-needed moderation of tone
and constancy of views. In its treatment of those questions con-
cerning which the Liberal party is of at least two minds, the West-
minster acts consistently as Moderator, holding the balance very
skilfully ; and while it did not, during the progress of the South African
war, escape the reproach of being labelled ' Pro-Boer ' by the Imperialist
Liberals, and while it is occasionally suspected by the other side of
being out of sympathy with the advanced programme, the fact remains
that it is perhaps the only representative Liberal paper with which all
sections practically agree, and if it were on occasion a little more
vigorous, more outspoken, when a strong line is indicated, it might
easily become a great fighting force. $

In Sunday and weekly papers and reviews, published in London,
an even greater disparity exists than in the case of the daily press.
Of the distinctively weekly papers, those, that is to say, giving a
survey of the week's news, not one represents the Liberal party since
the defection of Lloyd's, which, though under the same proprietor-
ship as the Daily Chronicle, has become the advocate of a somewhat
tepid form of Unionism. In purely Sunday papers also the only one
out of some half dozen which the Liberals can claim is the Sunday
Sun, and this is neither very robust in its politics nor very lively as
to the rest of it. The remainder, even if not very intelligent in their
politics, are either whole-heartedly or flippantly Tory.

Of the weekly reviews, but one — The Speaker — flies the Liberal
colours, and that one, though it contains much admirable work,
makes a deliberate appeal only to a section, and that a rather narrow
section, of the party. It is, indeed, mainly distinguished by a youthful
and not very enlightened intolerance of all who do not share its
somewhat doctrinaire views. Some advantage has undoubtedly
accrued to the Liberal party from the revolt of the Spectator against
VOL. LVI— No. 330 p

206 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY Aug.

Chamberlainism, and if, as some people profess to think probable,
there should follow on the next'general election a regrouping of parties,
in which the Free Trade and more Progressive Unionists should decide
to act with the Moderate Liberals, the Spectator \vould no doubt
become once more a recognised exponent of broad Liberal views.

The foregoing survey shows, I think, that the unquestioned con-
version of the majority of the country — as testified by the past score
or so of by-elections — owes very little to the Liberal press. In number
of newspapers and in circulation the Tory press has, as I have shown,
an immense and unquestioned superiority, and yet the Conservatives
are as surely slipping back as the Liberals are pressing forward. What
use does the Liberal press throughout the country propose to make
of the powerful weapon that is ready forged to its hand ? Is there
to be found the same want of cohesion, the same ridiculous bickering
over non-essentials that has marked the conduct of Liberal newspapers
and reviews for nearly a score of years past ? If so, it is certain that
the country's support of the party will not be of long duration, and
the next state of Liberal journalism, and therefore of Liberalism,
will be even worse than that which it has just managed to survive.
If Liberal journalism is to flourish, if it is to serve as something more
than a subsidised vehicle for the dissemination of particular and
peculiar views, it must regain the confidence of those upon whom ife
must at all times be largely dependent for its prosperity. This it
can only do by the cultivation of greater moderation of tone, which
need entail no sacrifice of its principles, and by disabusing the com-
mercial class of the erroneous idea — a very fixed one in the minds of
many — that Liberalism means spoliation and disturbance of trade.

No doubt the amenities which are now so conspicuously wanting
in a considerable section of the Liberal press will come more easily
and more naturally when the positions of the two political forces are
reversed. It may then be possible for one or two of its principal
representatives, who have converted the practice of proscription into
a fine art, to exercise a wider tolerance and to give themselves a much-
needed respite from banning those with whom they do not at the
moment happen to agree on all points of Liberal policy. That would
go a long way towards reassuring the larger public, and so would tend
to restore to the Liberal press the authority, stability, and prosperity
it has so largely lost during the years it has been wandering in the
wilderness.

W. J. FlSHHR,

Late Editor of the ' Daily Chi onisle.'

1904

THE
ETHICAL NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY

' I

WHEN we cast a glance upon the immense progress realised by all the
exact sciences in the course of the nineteenth century, and when we
closely examine the character of the conquests achieved by each of
them, and the promises they contain for the future, we cannot but
feel deeply impressed by the idea that mankind is entering a new era
of progress. It has, at any rate, before it all the elements for opening
such a new era. In the course of the last hundred or hundred-and-
twenty years, entirely new branches of knowledge, opening unexpected
vistas upon the laws of development of human society, have grown
up under the names of anthropology, prehistoric ethnology, the
history of religions, the origin of institutions, and so on. Quite new
conceptions about the whole life of the universe were developed by
pursuing such lines of research as molecular physics, the chemical
structure of matter, and the chemical composition of distant worlds.
And the traditional views about the position of man in the universe,
the origin of life, and the life of the mind were entirely upset by the
rapid development of biology, the reappearance of the theory of
evolution, and the growth of physiological psychology. Merely ^to
say that the progress of science in each of its branches, excepting
perhaps astronomy, has been greater during the last century than
during any three or four centuries of the Middle Ages or of antiquity
would not be enough. We have to return 2300 years back, to
the glorious times of the philosophical revival in ancient Greece, in
order to find another period of sudden awakening of the intellect and
of sudden bursting forth of knowledge which would be similar to what
we have witnessed lately. And yet, at that early period of hunven
history, man did not enter into possession of all those wonders of indus-
trial technique which have been arrayed lately in our service. A youthful,
daring spirit of invention, stimulated by the discoveries of science,
and taking its flight to new, hitherto inaccessible regions, has increased
our powers of creating wealth, and reduced the effort required
for rendering well-being accessible to all to such a degree that no

20v r 2

208 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

Utopian of antiquity, or of the Middle Ages, or even of the earlier
portion of the nineteenth century, could have dreamt anything of the
sort. For the first time in the history of civilisation, mankind has
reached a point where the means of satisfying its needs are in excess of
the needs themselves. To impose, therefore, as has hitherto been
done, the curse of misery and degradation upon vast divisions of
mankind, in order to secure well-being for the few, is needed no more :
well-being can be secured for all, without overwork for any. We are
thus placed in a position entirely to remodel the very bases and con-
tents of our civilisation — provided the civilised nations find in their
midst the constructive capacities and the powers of creation required
for utilising the conquests of the human intellect in the interest of all.

Whether our present civilisation is vigorous and youthful enough
to undertake such a great task, and to bring it to the desired end, we
cannot say beforehand. But this is certain, that the latest revival of
science has created the intellectual atmosphere required for calling
such forces into existence. Reverting to the sound philosophy of
Nature which remained in neglect from the times of ancient Greece,
until Bacon began to wake it up from its long slumber, modern science
has now worked out the elements of a philosophy of the universe,
free of supernatural hypotheses and the metaphysical ' mythology of
ideas,' and at the same time so grand, so poetical and inspiring, so
full of energy, and so much breathing freedom, that it certainly is
capable of calling into existence the necessary forces. Man need no
more clothe his ideals of moral beauty, and of a better organised
society, with the garb of superstition : he can free himself from those
fears which had hitherto damped his soaring towards a higher life.

One of the greatest achievements of modern science was, of course,
that it firmly established the idea of indestructibility of energy
through all the ceaseless transformations which it undergoes in the
universe. For the physicist and the mathematician this idea became
a most fruitful source of discovery. It inspires, in fact, all modern
research. But its philosophical import is equally great. It accustoms
man to conceive the life of the universe as a never-ending series of
transformations of energy, among which the birth of our planet, its
evolution, and its final, unavoidable destruction and reabsorption in
the great Cosmos are but an infinitesimally small episode — a mere
moment in the life of the stellar worlds. The same with the researches
concerning life. The recent studies in the wide borderland, where the
simplest life-processes in the lowest fungi are hardly distinguishable — if
distinguishable at all — from the chemical redistribution of atoms which
is always going on in the more complex molecules of matter, have
divested life of its mystical character. At the same time, our concep-
tion of life has been so widened that we grow accustomed now to
conceive all the agglomerations of matter in the universe — solid,
liquid, and gaseous — as living too, and going through those cycles of

1904 ETHICAL NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY 209

evolution and decay which we formerly attributed to- organic beings
only. Then, reverting to ideas which were budding once in ancient
Greece, modern science has retraced step by step that marvellous
evolution which, after having started with the simplest forms, hardly
deserving the name of organisms, has gradually produced the infinite
variety of beings which now people and enliven our planet. And, by
making us familiar with the thought that every organism is to an
immense extent the produce of its own surroundings, biology has
solved one of the greatest riddles of Nature — its harmony, the adapta-
tions to an end which it offers us at every step. Even in the most
puzzling of all manifestations of life, the domain of feeling and thought,
in which human intelligence has to catch the very processes by means
of which it succeeds in retaining and co-ordinating the impressions re-
ceived from without — even in this domain, the darkest of all, science
has already caught a glimpse of the mechanism of thought by follow-
ing the lines of research indicated by physiology. And finally, in the
vast field of human institutions, habits and laws, superstitions, beliefs
and ideals, such a flood of light has been thrown by the anthropolo-
gical schools of history, law, and economics that we can already main-
tain positively that ' the greatest happiness of the greatest number '
is not a mere Utopia. It is an ideal worth striving for, since it is
proved that the prosperity and happiness of no nation or class could
ever be based, even for the duration of a few generations, upon the
degradation of other classes, nations, or races.

Modern science has thus achieved a double aim. On the one side
it has given to man a great lesson of modesty. It has taught him to
consider himself as but an infinitesimally small particle of that im-
mense whole — the universe. It has driven him out of his narrow,
egotistical seclusion, and has dissipated the self-conceit under which
he considered himself the centre of the universe and the object of a
special attention in it. It has taught him that without the whole
the 'ego' is nothing: that our 'I' cannot even come to a self-definition
without the ' Thou.' l But at the same time science has taught man
how powerful mankind is in its progressive march ; and it has given
him the means to enlist in his service the unlimited energies of Nature.

So far, then, as science and philosophy go, they have given us
both the material elements and the freedom of thought which are
required for calling into life the reconstructive forces that may lead
mankind to a new era of progress. There is, however, one branch of
knowledge which lags behind. It is ethics. A system of ethics worthy
of the present scientific revival, which would take advantage of all the
recent acquisitions for revising the very foundations of morality on a
wider philosophical basis, and produce a higher moral ideal, capable of
giving to the civilised nations the inspiration required for the great

1 Schopenhauer, The Foundations of Morals, section 22. All the paragraph is of
the greatest beauty. Also Feuerbach and others.

210 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY Aug.

task that lies before them — such a system has not yet been produced.
But it is called for on all sides, with an emphasis the sense of which
cannot be misunderstood. A new, realistic moral science is the need
of the day — a science as free of superstition, religious dogmatism, and
metaphysical mythology as modern cosmogony and philosophy already
are, and permeated at the same time with those higher feelings and
brighter hopes which a thorough knowledge of man and his history
can breathe into men's breasts.

That such a science is possible lies beyond any reasonable doubt.
If the study of Nature has yielded the elements of a philosophy which
embraces the life of the Cosmos, the evolution of the living beings,
the laws of psychical activity, and the development of society, it
must also be able to give us the rational origin and the sources of the
moral feelings. And it must be able to indicate and to reinforce
the agencies which contribute towards the gradual rising of these
feelings to an always greater height and purity, without resorting
for that purpose to blind faith or to religious coercion. If a closer
acquaintance with Nature was able to infuse into the minds of the
greatest naturalists and poets of the nineteenth century that lofty
inspiration which they found in the contemplation of the universe —
if a look into Nature's breast made Goethe live only the more intensely
in the face of the raging storm, the calm mountains, the dark forest
and its inhabitants — why should not a widened knowledge of man and
his destinies be able to inspire the poet in the same way ? And when
the poet has found the proper expression for his sense of communion
with the Cosmos and his unity with fellow-men, he becomes capable
of inspiring thousands of men with the highest enthusiasm. He
makes them feel better, and awakens the desire of being better still.
He produces in them those very ecstasies which were formerly con-
sidered as belonging exclusively to the province of religion. What
are, indeed, the Psalms, which are described as the highest expression
of religious feeling, or the more poetical portions of the sacred books
of the East, but attempts to express man's ecstasy at the contemplation
of the universe — the first awakening of his sense of the poetry of
Nature ?

II

The need of realistic ethics was felt from the very dawn of the
present scientific revival, when Bacon, at the same time as he laid
the foundations of the present advancement of sciences, indicated
also the main outlines of empirical ethics, perhaps with less thorough-
ness than this was done by his followers, but with a width of con-
ception which was not much improved upon in later days. The best
thinkers of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries continued
on the same lines, endeavouring to work out systems of ethics, indepen-
dent of the imperatives of religion. Hobbes, Locke, Shaftesbury and

1904 ETHICAL NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY 211

Paley, Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam Smith boldly attacked the pro-
blem on all sides. They indicated the empirical sources of the moral
sense, and in their determinations of the moral ends they mostly stood
on the same empirical ground. They combined in varied ways the
' intellectualism ' and utilitarianism of Locke with the ' moral sense '
and sense of beauty of Hutcheson, the * theory of association ' of
Hartley, and the ethics of feeling of Shaftesbury. Speaking of the
ends of ethics, some of them already mentioned the ' harmony '
between self-love and regard to fellow-men which took such a develop-
ment in the nineteenth century, and considered it in connection with
Hutcheson's ' emotion of approbation,' or the ' sympathy ' of Hume
and Adam Smith. And finally, if they found a difficulty in explaining
the sense of duty on a rational basis, they resorted to the early influences
of religion, or to some inborn sense, or to some variety of Hobbes'
theory of law, considered as the educator of the otherwise unsociable
primitive savage. The French Encyclopaedists and materialists dis-
cussed the problem on the same lines, only insisting more on self-love,
and trying to find the synthesis of the opposed tendencies of human
nature in the educational influence of the social institutions, which
must be such as to favour the development of the better sides of human
nature. Rousseau, with his rational religion, stood as a link between
the materialists and the intuitionists, and by boldly attacking the
social problems of the day he won a wider hearing than any one of
them. On the other side, even the utmost idealists, like Descartes
and his pantheist follower Spinoza, even Leibnitz and the ' tran-
scendentalist-idealist ' Kant, did not trust entirely to the revealed
origin of the moral ideas, and tried to give to ethics a broader founda-
tion, even though they would not part entirely with an extra-human
origin of the moral law.

The same endeavour towards finding a realistic basis for ethics
became even more pronounced in the nineteenth century, when
quite a number of important ethical systems were worked out on the
different bases of rational self-love, love of humanity (Auguste Comte,
Littre, and a great number of minor followers), sympathy and intel-
lectual identification of one's personality with mankind (Schopen-
hauer), utilitarianism (Bentham and Mill), and evolution (Darwin,
Spencer, Guyau), to say nothing of the negative systems, originating
in La Rochefoucauld and Mandeville and developed by Nietzsche and
several others, who tried to establish a higher moral standard by their
bold attacks against the current half-hearted moral conceptions, and
by a vigorous assertion of the supreme rights of the individual.

Two of the nineteenth-century ethical systems — Comte's posi-
tivism and Bentham's utilitarianism — exercised, as is known, a deep
influence upon the century's thought, and the former impressed
with its own stamp all the scientific researches which make the glory
of modern science. They also gave origin to a variety of sub-systems,

212 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

so that most modern writers of mark in psychology, evolution, or
anthropology have enriched ethical literature with some more or less
original researches, sometimes of a high standard, as is the case with
Feuerbach, Bain, Leslie Stephen, Wundt, Sidgwick, and several
others. Numbers of ethical societies were also started for a wider
propaganda of empirical ethics. At the same time, an immense move-
ment, chiefly economical in its origins, but eminently ethical in its
substance, was born in the first half of the nineteenth century and
spread very widely under the names of Fourierism, Saint- Simonism,
and Owenism, and later on of international socialism and anarchism.
This movement was an attempt on a great scale, supported by the
working men of all nations, not only to revise the very foundations of
the current ethical conceptions, but also to introduce into real life
the conditions under which a new page in the ethical life of mankind
could be opened.

It would seem, therefore, that since such a number of rationalist
ethical systems have grown up in the course of the last two centuries,
it is impossible to approach the subject once more without falling into
a mere repetition or a mere recombination of fragments of already
advocated schemes. However, the very fact that each of the main
systems produced in the nineteenth century — the positivism of Comte,
the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, and the altruist evolutionism
of Darwin, Spencer, and Guyau — has added something important to
the conceptions worked out by its predecessors proves that the matter
is far yet from being exhausted. Even if we take the last three
systems only, we cannot but see that Spencer failed to take advantage
of some of the hints which the evolutionist philosopher finds in the
short but very suggestive sketch of ethics given by Darwin in The
Origin of Man ; while Guyau introduced into morals such an important
element as that of an overflow of energy in feeling, thought, or will,
which had not been taken into account by his evolutionist pre-
decessors. If every new system thus contributes some new and
valuable element, this very fact proves that ethical science is not yet
constituted. In fact, it never will bs, because new factors and new
tendencies will always have to be taken into account in proportion
as mankind advances in its mental evolution.

That, at the same time, none of the ethical systems which were
brought forward in the course of the nineteenth century has satisfied,
be it only the educated fraction of the civilised nations, hardly need be
insisted upon. To say nothing of the numerous philosophical works
in which dissatisfaction with modern ethics has been expressed,2 the
best proof of it is the decided return to idealism which we see in all
civilised nations, and especially in France. The absence of any
poetical inspiration in the positivism of Littre and Herbert Spencer,

J Sufficient to name here the critical and historical works of Paulsen, Wundt,
Leslie Stephen, Guyau, Lichtenberger, Fouillee, De Roberty, and so many others.

1904 ETHICAL NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY 213

and their incapacity to cope with the great problems of our present
civilisation ; the striking narrowness of views concerning the social
problem which characterises the chief philosopher of evolution,
Spencer ; nay, the repudiation by the latter-day French positivists of
the humanitarian theories which distinguished the eighteenth- century
Encyclopaedists — all these have helped to create a strong reaction in
favour of a sort of mystico-religious idealism. The ferocious inter-
pretation of Darwinism, which was given to it by the most prominent
representatives of the evolutionist school, without a word of protest
coming from Darwin himself for the first twelve years after the appear-
ance of his Origin of Species, gave still more force to the reaction
against ' naturism ' — we are told by Fouillee. And, as always happens
with every reaction, the movement went far beyond its original pur-
pose. Beginning as a protest against some mistakes of the naturalist
philosophy, it soon became a campaign against positive knowledge
altogether. The ' failure of science ' was triumphantly announced.
The fact that science is revising now the ' first approximations ' con-
cerning life, psychical activity, evolution, the structure of matter,
and so on, which were arrived at in the years 1856-G2, and which must
be revised now in order to reach the next, deeper generalisations —
successive approximations being the very essence of the history of
sciences — this fact was taken advantage of for representing science
as having failed in its attempted solutions of all the great problems.
A crusade in favour of intuitionism and blind faith was started accord-
ingly. Going back first to Kant, then to Schelling, and even to Lotze,
numbers of writers have been preaching lately ' spiritualism,' ' inde-
terminism,' ' apriorism,' ' personal idealism,' and so on — proclaiming
faith as the very source of all true knowledge. Religious faith itself
was found insufficient. It is the mysticism of St. Bernard or of the
neo-Platonians which is now in demand. ' Symbolism,' ' the subtle,*
' the incomprehensible ' are sought for. Even the belief in the
mediaeval Satan was resuscitated.3

It hardly need be said that none of these currents of thought ob-
tained a widespread hold upon the minds of our contemporaries ; but
we certainly see public opinion floating between the two extremes —
between a desperate effort, on the one side, to force oneself to return
to the obscure creeds of the Middle Ages, with their full accompani-
ment of superstition, idolatry, and even magic ; and, on the opposite
extreme, a glorification of ' a-moralism ' and a revival of that worship
of ' superior natures,' now invested with the names of ' supermen ' or
' superior individualisations,' which Europe had lived through in the
times of Byronism and early Romanticism.

It appears, therefore, more necessary than ever to see if the present

3 See A. Fouillee, Le Mouvcment idtaliste et la Reaction contre la Science
positive, 2nd edition ; Paul Desjardins, Le Devoir present, which has gone through
five editions in a short time ; and many others.

214 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

scepticism as to the claims of science in ethical questions is well
founded, and whether science does not contain already the elements
of a system of ethics which, if it were properly formulated, would
respond to the needs of the present day.

Ill

The limited success of the various ethical systems which were
born in the course of the last hundred years shows that man cannot
be satisfied with a mere naturalistic explanation of the origins of the
moral instinct. He means to have a justification of it. Simply to
trace the origin of our moral feelings, as we trace the pedigree of some
structural feature in a flower, and to say that such-and-such causes
have contributed to the growth and refinement of the moral sense,
is not enough. Man wants to have a criterion for judging the moral
instinct itself. Whereto does it lead us ? Is it towards a desirable
end, or towards something which, as some critics say, would only
result in the weakening of the race and its ultimate decay ? If struggle
for life and the extermination of the physically weakest is the law of
Nature, and represents a condition of progress, is not then the cessation
of the struggle, and the ' industrial state ' which Comte and Spencer
promise us, the very beginning of the decay of the human race — as
Nietzsche has so forcibly concluded ? And if such an end is un-
desirable, must we not proceed, indeed, to a re-valuation of all those
moral * values ' which tend to reduce the struggle, or to render it less
painful ? The main problem of modern realistic ethics is thus, as
has been remarked by Wundt in his Ethics,4 to determine, first of all,
the moral end in view. But this end or ends, however ideal they may
be, and however remote their full realisation, must belong to the
world of realities. They must be born out of it, and remain accessible
to our senses, because modern man will not be taken in by mere words
or by a metaphysical substantiation of his own desires. The end of
morals cannot be ' transcendental,' as the idealists desire it to be : it
must be real.

When Darwin threw into circulation the idea of ' struggle for
existence,' and represented this struggle as the mainspring of progres-
sive evolution, he agitated once more the great old question as to the
moral or immoral aspects of Nature. The origin of the conceptions
of good and evil, which had exercised the best minds since the times
of the Zend Avesta, was brought once more under discussion with a
renewed vigour, and with a greater depth of conception than ever.
Nature was represented by the Darwinists as an immense battlefield
upon which one sees nothing but an incessant struggle for life and an

4 W. Wundt, Ethics, English translation in three volumes, by Professor Titchener,
Prof. Julia Gulliver, and Prof. Margaret Washburn, New York and London (Swan
Sonnenschein), 1897.

extermination of the weak ones by the strongest, the swiftest, and the
cunningest : evil was the only lesson which man could get from Nature.
These ideas, as is known, became very widely spread. But if they are
true the evolutionist philosopher has to solve a deep contradiction,
which he himself has introduced into his philosophy. He cannot
deny that man is possessed of a higher conception of ' good/ and that
a faith in the gradual triumph of the good principle is deeply seated in
human nature, and he has to explain this conception and this faith.
He cannot be lulled into indifference by the Epicurean hope, expressed
by Tennyson — that ' somehow good will be the final goal of ill.' Nor
can he represent to himself Nature, ' red in tooth and claw,' at strife
everywhere with the good principle — the very negation of it in every
living being — and yet this good principle triumphant in the long run.
He must explain this contradiction. But if he maintains that the
only lesson which Nature gives to man is one of evil, then he neces-
sarily has to admit the existence of some other, extra-natural, or
supra-natural influence which inspires man with conceptions of
' supreme good,' and guides human development towards a higher
goal. And in this way he nullifies his own attempt at explaining
evolution by the action of natural forces only.

In reality, however, things do not stand so badly as that for the
theory of evolution. The above interpretation of Nature is not
supported by fact. It is incomplete, one-sided, and consequently
wrong, and Darwin himself indicated the other aspect of Nature in
a special chapter of The Origin of Man. There is, he pointed out, in
Nature itself, another set of facts, parallel to those of mutual struggle,
but having a quite different meaning : the facts of mutual support
within the species, which are even more important than the former,
on account of their significance for the welfare of the species and its
maintenance. This extremely important idea, to which, however,
most Darwinists paid but little attention, I attempted further to
develop a few years ago, in a series of essays originally published in
this Review, and in which I endeavoured to bring into evidence the
immense importance of Mutual Aid for the preservation of both the
animal species and the human race, and still more so for progressive
evolution.5 Without trying to minimise the fact that an immense
number of animals live either upon species belonging to some lower
division of the animal kingdom, or upon some smaller species of the
same class as themselves, I indicated that warfare in Nature is chiefly
limited to struggle between different species ; but that within each
species, and within the groups of different species which we find
living together, the practice of mutual aid is the rule, and therefore
this last aspect of animal life plays a far greater part in the economy
of Nature than warfare. It is more general, not only on account of

5 Nineteenth Century, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1894, and 1896 ; Mutual Aid : A Factor
of Evolution, London (Heinemana), 2nd edition, 1904.

216 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

the immense numbers of sociable species, such as the ruminants,
many rodents, many birds, the ants, the bees, and so on, which do
not prey at all upon other animals, and the overwhelming numbers of
individuals which all sociable species contain, but also because nearly
all carnivorous and rapacious species, and especially those of them
which are not in decay owing to a rapid extermination by man or to
some other cause, also practise it to some extent.

If mutual support is so general in Nature, it is because it offers
such immense advantages to all those animals which practise it best
that it entirely upsets the balance of benefits which otherwise might
be derived from a superior development of beak and claw. It repre-
sents the best arm in the great struggle for life which continually has
to be carried on in Nature against climate, inundations, storms, frost,
and the like, and continually requires new adaptations to the ever-
changing conditions of existence. Therefore, taken as a whole,
Nature is by no means an illustration of the triumph of physical
force, swiftness, cunningness, or any other feature useful in warfare.
It teems, on the contrary, with species decidedly weak, badly pro-
tected, and all but warlike — such as the ant, the bee, the pigeon, the
duck, the marmot, the gazelle, and so on — which, nevertheless,
succeed best in the struggle for life, and, owing to their sociability and
mutual protection, even displace much more powerfully-built com-
petitors and enemies. And, finally, we can take it as proved that while
struggle for life leads indifferently to both progressive and regressive
evolution, the practice of mutual aid is the agency which always
leads to progressive development. It is the main factor of progressive
evolution.

Being thus necessary for the preservation, the welfare, and the
progressive development of every species, the mutual aid instinct
has become what Darwin described as ' a permanent instinct,' which
is always at work in all sociable animals, and especially in man. Having
its origin at the very beginnings of the evolution of the animal world,
it is certainly an instinct as deeply seated in animals, low and high,
as the instinct of maternal love ; perhaps even deeper, because it is
present in such animals as the molluscs, some insects, and most
fishes, which hardly possess the maternal instinct at all. Darwin
was therefore quite right in considering that the instinct of ' mutual
sympathy ' is more permanently at work in the sociable animals
than even the purely egotistic instinct of direct self-preservation.
He saw in it, as is known, the rudiments of the moral conscience.

But this is not all. In the same instinct we have the origin of
those feelings of benevolence and of that partial identification of the
individual with the group which become the starting-point of all the
higher ethical feelings. It is upon this foundation that the higher
sense of justice, or equity, is developed. When we see that scores of
thousands of different aquatic birds come together for nesting on the

1904 ETHICAL NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY 217

ledges of the ' birds' mountains,' without fighting for the best positions
on these ledges ; that several flocks of pelicans will keep by the side of
each other in their separate fishing grounds ; and that hundreds of species
of birds and mammals come in some way to a certain arrangement
concerning their feeding areas, their nesting places, their night quarters,
and their hunting grounds, and respect these arrangements, instead of
continually fighting for upsetting them ; or when we see that a young
bird which has stolen some straw from another bird's nest is attacked
by all the birds of the same colony, we catch on the spot the very
origin and the growth of the sense of equity and justice in the animal
societies. And finally, in proportion as we advance in every class of
animals towards the higher representatives of that class (the ants,
the wasps, and the bees amongst the insects, the cranes and the
parrots amongst the birds, the higher ruminants, the apes and man
amongst the mammals), we find that the identification of the individual
with the interests of his group, and eventually sacrifice for it, grow in
proportion — thus revealing to us the origin of the higher ethical
feelings. It thus appears that not only Nature does not give us a
lesson of a-moralism, which need be corrected by some extra-natural
influence, but we are bound to recognise that the very ideas of bad and
good, and man's abstractions concerning ' the supreme good ' and ' the
lowest evil,' have been borrowed from Nature. They are reflections
in the mind of man of what he saw in Nature, and these impressions
were developed during his life in society into conceptions of right and
wrong. However, they are not merely subjective appreciations.
They contain the fundamental principles of equity and mutual sym-
pathy, which apply to all sentient beings, just as mechanical truths
derived from observation on the surface of the earth apply to matter
everywhere in the stellar spaces.

It is self-evident that a similar conception must also apply to the
evolution of the human character and human institutions. True
that up to the present time the history of mankind, notwithstanding
the extreme wealth of materials accumulated lately, has not been
told as the development of some fundamental ethical tendency.
But it is already possible now to conceive it as the evolution of
an ethical factor which consists, as I have tried to prove, in the
ever-present tendency of men to organise the relations within the tribe,
the village community, the commonwealth, on the bases of mutual
aid ; these forms of social organisation becoming in turn the bases of
further progress. We certainly must abandon the idea of repre-
senting human history as an uninterrupted chain of development
from the pre-historic Stone Age to the present time. Just as in
the evolution of the animal series we consider the insects, the
birds, the fishes, the mammals, as separate lines of development, so
also in human history we must admit that evolution was started
several times anew— in India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome,

218 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY Aug<

and finally in Western Europe, beginning each time with the primitive
tribe and the village community. But if we consider each of these
lines separately, we certainly find in each of them, and especially in
the development of Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire, a
continual widening of the conception of mutual support and mutual
protection, from the clan to the tribe, the nation, and finally to the
international union of nations. And, on the other side, notwithstand-
ing the temporary regressive movements which occasionally take
place, even in the most civilised nations, there is — at least among the
representatives of advanced thought in the civilised world and in the
progressive popular movements — the tendency of always widening
the current conception of human solidarity and justice, and of con-
stantly refining the character of our mutual relations, as well as the
ideal of what is desirable in this respect. The very fact that the
backward movements which take place from time to time are con-
sidered by the enlightened portion of the population as mere temporary
illnesses of the social organism, the return of which must be prevented
in the future, proves that the average ethical standard is now higher
than it was in the past. And in proportion as the means of satisfying
the needs of all the members of the civilised communities are improved,
and room is prepared for a still higher conception of justice for all,
the ethical standard is bound to become more and more refined.
In scientific ethics man is thus in a position not only to reaffirm his
faith in moral progress, which he obstinately retains, notwithstanding
all pessimistic lessons to the contrary, he sees that this belief,
although it had only originated in one of those artistic intuitions
which always precede science, was quite correct, and is confirmed now
by positive knowledge.

IV

If the empirical philosophers have hitherto failed to state this
steady progress which, speaking metaphorically, we can describe as
the leading principle of evolution, the fault lies to a great extent with
our predecessors, the speculative philosophers. They have so much
denied the empirical origin of man's moral feelings ; they have gone
into such subtle reasonings in order to assign a supernatural origin to
the moral sense ; and they have so much spoken about ' the destina-
tion of man,' the ' why of his existence,' and ' the aim of Nature,'
that a reaction against the mythological and metaphysical conceptions
which had risen round this question was unavoidable. Moreover, the
modern evolutionists, having established the wide part which certainly
pertains in the animal world to a keen struggle between different
species, could not accept that such a brutal process, which entails so
much suffering upon sentient beings, should be the unravelling of a
superior plan ; and they consequently denied that any ethical principle

1904 ETHICAL NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY 219

could be discovered in it. Only now that the evolution of species,
races of men, human institutions, and ethical ideas has been proved to
be the result of natural forces, has it become possible to study all the
factors which were at work, including the ethical factor of mutual
support and growing sympathy, without the risk of falling back into a
supra-natural philosophy. But, this being so, we reach a point of
considerable philosophical importance.

We are enabled to conclude that the lesson which man derives
both from the study of Nature and his own history is the permanent
presence of a double tendency — towards a greater development, on
the one side, of sociability, and, on the other side, of a consequent
increase of the intensity of life, which results in an increase of happiness
for the individuals, and in progress — physical, intellectual, and moral.
This double tendency is a distinctive characteristic of life altogether.
It is always present, and belongs to life, as one of its attributes,
whatever aspects life may take on our planet or elsewhere. And this
is not a metaphysical assertion, or a mere supposition. It is an
empirically discovered law of Nature. It thus appears that science,
far from destroying the foundations of ethics — as it is so often
accused of doing — gives, on the contrary, a concrete content to the
nebulous metaphysical presumptions which were current in transcen-
dental ethics. As it goes deeper into the life of Nature, it gives to
evolutionist ethics a philosophical certitude, where the transcendental
thinker had only a vague intuition to rely upon.

There is still less foundation in another continually repeated
reproach — namely, that the study of Nature can only lead us to
recognise some cold mathematical truth, but that such truths have
little effect upon our actions. The study of Nature, we are told, can
at the best inspire us with the love of truth ; but the inspiration for
higher emotions, such as that of ' infinite goodness,' must be sought
for in some other source, which can only be religion. So we are told,
at least ; but, to begin with, love of truth is already one half — :the better
half — of all ethical teaching. As to the conception of good and the
admiration for it, the ' truth ' which we have just mentioned is certainly
an inspiring truth, of which Goethe, with the insight of his pantheistic
genius, had already guessed the philosophical value,6 and which
certainly will some day find its expression in the poetry of Nature and
give it an additional humanitarian touch. Moreover, the deeper we
go into the study of the primitive man, the more we realise that it
was from the life of animals with whom he stood in close contact,
even more than from his own congeners, that he learned the first
lessons of valour, self-sacrifice for the welfare of the group, unlimited
parental love, and the advantages of sociability altogether. The con-
ceptions of ' virtue ' and ' wickedness ' are zoological, not merely
human conceptions. As to the powers which ideas and intellectually

* Eckermann, Ge.iprii-ch«, 1848, vol. iii. 219, 221.

220 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Au*

o

conceived ideals exercise upon the current moral conceptions, and
how these conceptions influence in their turn the intellectual aspect
of an epoch, this subject hardly need be insisted upon. The intel-
lectual evolution of a given society may take at times, under the
influence of all sorts of circumstances, a totally wrong turn, or it may
take, on the contrary, a high flight. But in both cases the leading
ideas of the time will never fail deeply to influence the ethical life.
The same applies to a great extent to the individual. Most certainly,
ideas are forces, as Fouillee puts it ; and they are ethical forces, if the
ideas are correct and wide enough to represent the real life of Nature — •
not one of its sides only. The first step, therefore, towards the elabora-
tion of a morality which should exercise a lasting influence is to base
it upon an ascertained truth ; and this is so much so, that one of the
main causes opposed now to the appearance of a complete ethical
system, corresponding to the present needs, is the fact that the science
of society is still in its infancy. Having just completed its storing of
materials, sociology is only beginning to investigate them with the
view to ascertaining the probable lines of a future development.

The chief demand which is addressed now to ethics is to do its best
to find in philosophy, and thus to help mankind to find in its
institutions, a synthesis — not a compromise — between the two sets of
feelings which exist in man : those which induce him to subdue other
men, in order to utilise them for his individual ends, and those which
induce human beings to unite and to combine for attaining common
ends by common effort : the first answering to that fundamental
need of human nature — struggle, and the second representing another
equally fundamental tendency — the desire of union and sympathy.
Such a synthesis is of absolute necessity, because the civilised man of
to-day, having no settled conviction on this point, is paralysed in
his powers of action. He cannot admit that a struggle to the knife
for supremacy, carried on between individuals and nations, should
be the last word of science ; he does not believe, at the same time, in
the solution of brotherhood and resigned self-abnegation which Chris-
tianity has offered us for so many centuries, but upon which it has
failed to establish a commonwealth ; and he has no faith either in the
solution offered by the communists. To settle, then, these doubts, and
to aid mankind in finding the synthesis between the two leading
tendencies of human nature, is the chief duty of ethics. For this
purpose we have earnestly to study what were the means resorted to
by men at different periods of their evolution, in order so to direct
the individual forces as to get from them the greatest benefit for the
welfare of all, without paralysing them. And we have to define the
tendencies in this direction which exist at the present moment —
the rough sketches, the timid attempts which are being made, or even
the potentialities concealed in modern society, which may be utilised
for finding that synthesis. And then, as no new move in civilisation

1904 ETHICAL NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY 221

has ever been made without a certain enthusiasm being evoked in
order to overcome the first difficulties of inertia and opposition, it is
the duty of the new ethics to infuse in men those ideals which
would move them, provoke their enthusiasm, and give them the
necessary forces for accomplishing that synthesis in real life.

This brings us to the chief reproach which has always been made
for the last two hundred years to all empirical systems of ethics. Their
conclusions, we are told, will never have the necessary authority for
influencing the actions of men, because they cannot be invested with
the sense of duty, of obligation. It must be understood, of course,
that empirical morality has never claimed to possess the imperative
character which belongs to prescriptions that are placed under the
sanction of religious awe, and of which we have the prototype in the
Mosaic Decalogue. True, that Kant thought of his ' categorical
imperative ' (' so act that the maxim of thy will might serve at the
same time as a principle of universal legislation ') that it required no
sanction whatever for being universally recognised as obligatory ; it
was, he maintained, a necessary form of reasoning, a ' category ' of
our intellect, and it was deduced from no utilitarian considerations.
However, modern criticism, beginning with Schopenhauer, has shown
that this was an illusion. Kant has certainly failed to prove why it
should be a duty to follow his injunction. And, strange to say, the
only reason why his ' imperative ' might recommend itself to general
acceptance is still its eudaemonistic character, its social utility, although
some of the best pages which Kant wrote were precisely those in which
he strongly objected to any considerations of utility being taken as the
foundation of morality. After all, he produced a beautiful panegyrip
of the sense of duty, but he failed to give to this sense any other
foundation than the inner conscience of man and his desire of retaining
a unity between his intellectual conceptions and his actions.

Empirical morality does not claim anything more. It does not
pretend in the least to find a substitute for the religious imperative
expressed in the words ' I am the Lord.' But it must also be said in
justification that the painful discrepancy which exists between the
ethical prescriptions of the Christian religion and the life of societies
professing to belong to it — a contradiction which surely shows no signs
of abatement — and, on the other side, the criticism that has been
made so successfully since the times of the Reform, concerning the
efficiency of morality based upon fear, have deprived the above
reproach of its value. However, even empirical morality is not entirely
devoid of a sense of conditional obligation. The different feelings
and actions which are usually described since the times of Auguste
Comte as ' altruistic ' can easily be classed under two different headings.
There are actions which may be considered as absolutely necessary,
once we choose to live in society, and to which, therefore, the name of
' altruistic ' ought never to be applied : they bear the character of

VOL. LVI — No. 330 Q,

222 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

reciprocity, and they are as much in the interest of the individual as
any act of self-preservation. And there are, on the other hand, those
actions which bear no character of reciprocity, and which, although
they are the real mainsprings of moral progress, can certainly have no
character of obligation attached to them. A great deal of confusion
arises from not having sufficiently kept in view this fundamental
distinction ; but this confusion can easily be got rid of.

Altogether it is quite evident that the functions of ethics are different
from those of law. Moral science does not even settle the question
whether legislation is necessary or not. It stands above that. It
soars on a higher level. We know, indeed, ethical writers — and these
were not the least influential in the early beginnings of the Reform
movement — who denied the necessity of any legislation and appealed
directly to human conscience. The function of ethics is not even so much
to insist upon the defects of man, and to reproach him with his ' sins,'
as to act in the positive direction, by appealing to man's best instincts.
It determines, of course, or rather it sums up, the few fundamental
principles without which neither animals nor men could live in societies;
but then it appeals to something superior to that : to love, courage,
fraternity, self-respect, concordance with one's ideal. It tells to man,
that if he desires to have a life in which all his forces, physical, intellec-
tual, and emotional, should find a full exercise, he must once and for
ever abandon the idea that such a life is attainable on the path of dis-
regard for others. It is only through establishing a certain har-
mony between the individual and all others that an approach to such
complete life will be possible ; and it adds : ' Look at Nature itself !
Study the past of mankind ! They will prove to you that so it is in
reality.' And when the individual, for this or that reason, hesitates
in some special case as to the best course to follow, ethics comes to
his aid and indicates how he would like himself to act, if he placed
himself in the place of those whom he is going to harm.7 But even
then true ethics does not trace a stiff line of conduct, because it is
the individual himself who must weigh the relative value of the different
motives affecting him. There is no use to recommend risk to one who
can stand no reverse, or to speak of an old man's prudence to the
young man full of energy. He would give the reply — the profoundly
true and beautiful reply which Egmont gives to old Count Oliva's
advice in Goethe's drama — and he would be quite right : ' As if
spurred by unseen spirits, the sunhorses of time run with the light cart
of our fate ; and there remains to us only boldly to hold the reins
and lead the wheels away — here, from a stone on our left, there
from upsetting the cart on our right. Whereto does it run ? Who
knows ? Can we only remember wherefrom we came ? ' ' The

7 ' It will not tell him, " This you must do," but inquire with him, " What is it
that you will, in reality and definitively — not only in a momentary mood ? " '
(F. Paulsen, System der Ethik, 2 vols., Berlin 1896, vol. i. p. 20.)

1904 ETHICAL NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY 223

flower must bloom,' as Guyau says,8 even though its blooming meant
death.

And yet the main purpose of ethics is not to advise men separately.
It is rather to set before them, as a whole, a higher purpose, an ideal
which, better than any advice, would make them act instinctively
in the proper direction. Just as the aim of intellectual education
is to accustom us to perform an enormous number of mental opera-
tions almost unconsciously, so is the aim of ethics to create such an
atmosphere in society as would produce in the great number,
entirely by impulse, those actions which best lead to the welfare of
all and the fullest happiness of every separate being. This is the
final aim of morality ; but to reach it we must free our morality of
the self-contradictions which it contains. A morality of charity,
compassion, and pity necessarily breeds a deadly contradiction. It
starts with the assertion of full equity and justice, or of full brother-
hood. But then it adds that we need not worry our minds with either.
The one is unattainable. As to the brotherhood of men, which is the
fundamental principle of all religions, it must not be taken too closely
a la lettre : that was a mere fafon de parler of enthusiastic preachers.
' Inequality is the rule of Nature,' we are told by religious people,
and with regard to this special lesson Nature, not religion, is the proper
teacher. But when the inequalities in the modes of living of men
become too striking, and the sum total of produced wealth is so divided
as to result in the most abject misery for a very great number, then
compassion for the poor, and sharing with them what can be shared
without parting with one's privileged position, becomes a holy duty.
Such a morality may certainly be prevalent in a society for a time,
or even for a long time, if it has the sanction of religion interpreted
by the reigning Church. But the moment that man begins to consider
the prescriptions of religion with a critical eye, and requires a reasoned
conviction instead of mere obedience and fear, an inner contradiction
of this sort cannot be retained any longer. It must be abandoned —
the sooner the better. Inner contradiction is the death- sentence of
all ethics.

A most important condition which modern morality is bound to
satisfy is that it must not aim at fettering the powers of action of the
individual, be it for so high a purpose as the welfare of the common-
wealth or even the species. Wundt, in his excellent review of the
ethical systems, makes the remark that from the eighteenth-century
period of enlightenment they became, nearly all of them, individualistic.
This is, however, true but to some extent, because the rights of the
individual were asserted with great energy in one domain only — in

8 M. Guyau, A Sketch of Morality independent of Obligation or Sanction, trans,
by Gertrude Kapteyn, London (Watts), 1898.

Q 2

224 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY Aug.

economics. And even here individual freedom remained, both in
theory and in practice, more illusory than real. As to the other
domains — political, intellectual, artistic — it may be said that in
proportion as economical individualism was asserted with more
emphasis, the subjection of the individual — to the war machinery
of the State, the system of education, the intellectual atmosphere
required for the support of the existing institutions, and so on — was
steadily growing. Even most of the advanced reformers of the present
day, in their forecasts of the future, reason under the presumption
of a still greater absorption of the individual by the society to which
he will belong. This tendency necessarily provoked a revolt, to which
Godwin at the beginning of the century, and Spencer towards its
end, already gave expression, and which brought Nietzsche to conclude
that all morality must be thrown overboard if it can find no better
foundation than the sacrifice of the individual in the interests of the
race. This revolt is perhaps the most characteristic feature of our
epoch, the more so as its mainspring is not so much in an egoistic
striving after economical independence (as was the case with the
eighteenth- century individualists, with the exception of Godwin)
as in a passionate desire of intellectual freedom for working out a new,
better form of society, in which the welfare of all would become a
groundwork for the fullest development of the personality.9

The want of development of the personality and the lack of indi-
vidual creative power and initiative are certainly one of the chief
drawbacks of the present period. Economical individualism has
not kept its promise : it did not result in any striking development
of individuality. As of yore, sociological creation is extremely slow,
and imitation remains the chief means for spreading progressive
innovations in mankind. Modern nations repeat the history of the
barbarian tribes and the mediaeval cities when they reproduced one
after the other, in a thousand copies, the same political, religious, and
economical movements. Whole nations have appropriated to them-
selves lately, with an astounding rapidity, the results of the West
European industrial and military civilisation ; and in these unrevised
new editions of old types we see best how superficial that civilisa-
tion is, how much of it is mere imitation. It is only natural, therefore,
to ask ourselves whether the current moral teachings are not instru-
mental in maintaining that imitative submission. Did they not too
much want to make of man the ' ideational automaton ' of Herbart,
who is plunged into contemplation, and fears above all the storms
of passion ? Is it not time to vindicate the rights of the real man, full

• Wundt expresses himself in these words : ' For, unless all signs fail, a revolution
of opinion is at present going on, in which the extreme individualism of the enlighten-
ment is giving place to a revival of the universalism of antiquity, supplemented by a
better notion of the liberty of human personality — an improvement that we owe to
individualism.' (Ethics, iii. p. 34 of English translation ; p. 459 of German original.)

1904 ETHICAL NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY 225

of vigour, who is capable of really loving what is worth being loved
and hating what deserves hatred, apart from the personalities in which
the lovable or the spiteful has been incarnated — the man who is
always ready to enter the arena and to fight for an ideal which ennobles
his love and justifies his antipathies ? From the times of the philo-
sophers of antiquity there was a tendency to represent ' virtue ' as
a sort of ' wisdom ' which induces the wise man to ' cultivate the
beauty of his soul,' rather than to join ' the unwise ' in their struggles
against the evils of the day. Later on that virtue became ' non-
resistance to evil,' and for many centuries in succession individual,
personal salvation, coupled with resignation and a passive attitude
towards evil, was the essence of Christian ethics; the result being
the culture of a monastic indifference to social good and evil, and the
elaboration of an intricate argumentation in favour of ' virtuous
individualism.' There is no doubt, however, that a reaction begins
now, and the question is asked whether a passive attitude in the
presence of evil does not merely mean moral cowardice ? whether,
as was taught by the Zend Avesta, an active struggle against Ahriman
as not the first condition of virtue ? 10 We need moral progress, but
without moral courage no moral progress is possible.

Such are some of the main currents of thought concerning the
ethical need of the day which can be discerned amid the present
confusion. All of them converge towards one leading idea. What
is wanted now is a new comprehension of morality : in its funda-
mental principle, which must be broad enough to infuse new life in
our civilisation, and in its methods, which must be freed from both
the transcendental survivals and the narrow conceptions of philistine
utilitarianism. The elements for such a comprehension are already
at hand. The importance of mutual aid in the evolution of the
animal world and human history may be taken, I believe, as a posi-
tively established scientific truth, free of any hypothetical admission.
We may also take next, as granted, that in proportion as mutual aid
becomes more habitual in a human community, and so to say instinc-
tive, this very fact leads to a parallel development of the sense of
justice, with its necessary accompaniment of equity and equalitarian
self-restraint. The idea that the personal rights of every individual
are as unassailable as the same rights of every other individual grows
in proportion as class distinctions fade away ; and it becomes esta-
blished as a matter of fact when the institutions of a given community
have been altered permanently in this sense. A certain degree of
identification of the individual with the interests of the group to which
it belongs has necessarily existed since the very beginning of sociable
life, and it is apparent even among the lowest animals. But in
proportion as relations of equalitarian justice are solidly established

18 C. P. Thiele, Geschichte der Eeligion im Alter thiim, German translation by
G. Gehrich. Gotha, 1903, vol. ii. pp. 163 sq.

226 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

in the human community, the ground is prepared for the further and
the more general development of those more refined relations, under
which man so well understands and feels the feelings of other men
affected by his actions that he refrains from offending them, even
though he may have to forsake on that account the satisfaction of
some of his own desires, and when he so fully identifies his feelings
with those of the others that he is ready to sacrifice his forces for their
benefit without expecting anything in return. These are the feelings
and the habits which alone deserve the name of Morality, properly
speaking, although most ethical writers confound them, under the
name of altruism, with the mere sense of justice.

Mutual Aid — Justice — Morality are thus the consecutive steps of an
ascending series, revealed to us by the study of the animal world and
man. It is not something imposed from the outside ; it is an organic
necessity which carries in itself its own justification, confirmed and
illustrated by the whole of the evolution of the animal kingdom,
beginning with its earliest colony-stages, and gradually rising to our
civilised human communities. Speaking an imaged language, it is
a general law of organic evolution, and this is why the senses of Mutual
Aid, Justice, and Morality are rooted in man's mind with all the force
of an inborn instinct — the first being evidently the strongest, and the
third, which is the latest, being the least imperative of the three. Like
the need of food, shelter, or sleep, these instincts are self-preservation
instincts. Of course, they may sometimes be weakened under the
influence of certain circumstances, and we know numbers of such
instances, when a relaxation of these instincts takes place, for one
reason or another, in some animal group, or in a human community ;
but then the group necessarily begins to fail in the struggle for life ;
it marches towards its decay. And if it perseveres in the wrong
direction, if it does not revert to those necessary conditions of survival
and of progressive development, which are Mutual Aid, Justice, and
Morality — then the group, the race, or the species dies out and dis-
appears. It did not fulfil the necessary condition of evolution — and it
must go.

This is the solid foundation which science gives us for the elabora-
tion of a new system of ethics and its justification ; and, therefore,
instead of proclaiming ' the bankruptcy of science,' what we have
now to do is to examine how scientific ethics can be built up out of
the elements which modern research, stimulated by the idea of
evolution, has accumulated for that purpose.

P. KROPOTKIN.

1904

THE HARVEST OF THE HEDGEROWS

A LANDSCAPE WITH fIGURES

EVERY lover of the open air, who follows Nature through sunshine
and rain, has found some spot which is dearer to him and carries a
deeper meaning than any other place on earth. From the earliest
green of the swelling bud to the last parched winter leaf, that clings
to sheltered oak or beech until the memory of a year ago is swept
away by the gales of March, the colours seem brighter there than else-
where, and the little confidences with which Nature rewards his con-
stancy become more tender and intimate.

It may be an open moorland, robed in summer in its mantle of
imperial purple and gay only in the unprofitable riches of golden-
spangled furze ; or a treeless down, sprinkled with delicate blue hare-
bells, that darkens under no sorrow heavier than the passing shadow
of a wind-driven cloud ; or even a melancholy fen, where the grey
heron stands motionless for hours by the brink of a muddy ditch, and
cold blue sedges lean trembling before the storm. But whether it be
mountain, woodland, or broad plain, if he have not caught the spirit
of his bit of countryside he has missed one of the finer joys of life.
Though he may have travelled the whole world over, and viewed the
wonders of another hemisphere, he is like one who, after a thousand
gay romances, has found no abiding love, or amidst a teeming humanity
has made no enduring friendship.

The spot I love the most is within easy walking distance from my
home, and thither my errandless footsteps always wander by some
indescribable attraction.

A narrow byway cuts through a sandy hollow, and then warily
descends aslant the steep hillside. Again it rises over a gentle knap,
a sort of outwork of the range, and from this lower summit a broad
valley lies full in view.

The land below is rich in green pastures, sparingly intermixed with
square arable fields, in which, after a yellow stubble, the furrows turn
up a light brown behind the plough. Everywhere there is a soil so
deep that no outcropping rock can shame us with the nakedness of
its poverty by wearing holes in its imperishable garment of verdure
decked with flowers. The fields are small ; therefore it is a country

227

228 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY Aug.

of hedgerows, with stately elms and here and there an oak standing
along the banks and casting mysterious shade upon the dark water
that often lies in the ditches below. Yet many of the fields have
once been smaller still ; and then a gentle ridge and hollow, covered
with grass of a deeper green, and a row of tall, spreading trees show
where a hedge and ditch have at some time been.

A spirit of tranquil plenty and contentment lightly rests upon the
whole valley, filling every nook and corner, like sunshine of a cloud-
less summer noon.

At early morning, and again of an afternoon, a dairyman comes
down to the pasture and throws open the gate. You can hear his
voice calling to the herd, and perhaps the barking of his dog. The
patient red and white milch-cows deliberately obey, and slowly pass
out of sight. Yet now and again there is a glimpse of bright colour
as they wind along the lane. Sometimes a wagon, laden with shining
tins and laughing folk, rattles to the meadow instead ; and then the
cattle gather in a shady corner and are milked in the field. All the
rest of the day, whether they stand on the bright after-grass that
comes after the hay or he in a sea of glistening buttercups, they are
left to ruminate in peace. Starlings congregate around them. Wag-
tails run quite close to catch the flies. Through all the summer
months nesting wood-pigeons, out of sight amidst foliaged-curtained
branches or from the dark ivy, that has run up from the hedge and
overgrown so many a stalwart trunk, make known their satisfac-
tion with the unceasing monotony of their one never-changing
phrase.

There are places a thousand times more lonely and less populated
than this quiet vale.

Every mile or so, a square church- tower and a cluster of thatched
gables rise above or peep between the elms, and a film of grey smoke
tells a tale of hearths unseen. Yet a few steps from the highroad,
not even the solitary woodland can offer a more beautiful seclusion.
This is the greatest charm of this country of old hedgerows.

They are beautiful, these hedgerows. Oftentimes neglected and left
uncut for years, they grow into a wild profusion. Though they keep
out the sun, at least they offer shelter from the winter wind. Black-
thorn and wrinkled maple, hawthorn and hazel, straight sapling of
grey ash, and frequent suckers from the long roots of the elm trees, all
push each other and intermingle their leaves of various shapes and
colours. The honeysuckles, hoping to flower unpicked, climb high
out of reach. The briars hang down and offer their sweet pink flowers.
Brambles thrust themselves and straggle everywhere. Here is a mass
of clematis ; and there white bryony, in close company with the
broad, glossy, heart-shaped leaves of the black, meets in a tangle
with the little purple, yellow-eyed flowers of the woody nightshade.
From the snowy blossom of the blackthorn upon a leafless hedge,

1904 THE HARVEST OF THE HEDGEROWS 229

through all the fragrant summer to the frost, when fieldfares come in
a flock to clear away the blood-red haws in a day, the hedgerow is a
glory and delight.

At last, in winter, or at least when the sap is low, a new figure is
seen in the landscape.

The hedger comes in his gloves and long leathern gaiters. He clears
away the useless stuff — ' trumpery,' he calls it — chooses with care the
likeliest growing wood for ' plashers,' with here and there a straight
sapling to grow into a tree, stands high upon the bank, and chops
down all the rest. With a deft blow of his hook he cuts the ' plasher '
almost through, so that it seems wonderful that it can live. He lays
it, and pegs it down; builds up the bank with sods, and fills the
new-made ditch with thorns, lest cattle should come and trample
upon his work. So the old hedge is turned to account. Nothing is
wasted. There is wood to burn, and fagots for the baker's oven.
The younger hazel goes for sticks for next year's peas ; the straight
ashen poles to fence sweet-smelling ricks. Even the ' trumpery ' will
serve as staddle to make a dry foundation for some future mow.

This, no doubt, is the true harvest of the hedgerow ; but it is not
the harvest which gave a title to this sketch.

It was autumn, and all the corn was hauled. Upon many of the
squares of golden stubble droves of pigs were running to pick up the
ears missed by the rake, and the ripe grains that had fallen when
the sheaves were pitched. On others the plough was already at work.
The ploughman shouted to his team as he turned under the hedgerow
to come back upon the other side. The rooks, that are so wary of
the harmless rambler like myself, rose as he drew near, circled within
easy gunshot above his head, spread their black wings, and lightly
dropped upon the fresh- turned furrow behind his back. From beyond
the hedge came the sound of the woodman's axe, for the September
gales, where the ditch lay to windward, had here and there torn up
an ancient elm by the roots, and he was lopping off the branches in
readiness for the timber wagon to haul away the trunk.

I was in the valley walking down a broad green lane. On either
hand were signs of the declining year. Where the wild roses grew the
briars were decked with crimson hips ; and, although a solitary flower
might still be seen, the honeysuckles had changed to clusters of
reddening berries. The hazel leaves were yellow, and the maple bush
was turning to old gold. A few sparse leaves and a sprinkling of apples
brighter than guineas still hung upon the crab. Surprised by the
quietness of my approach, a startled blackbird rushed out of the
ditch. A little later my eye caught sight of a wren, creeping like a
mouse and hiding out of sight behind the old level plashing upon the
bank ; and all the while I had the company of a flock of linnets, that
waited till I came, flew out of the hedge with a whirring of wings,

230 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

alighted only a few paces in front, all on one bush, and waited
again.

Far away down the lane something moved.

For a moment it was impossible to be certain, and yet surely a
living thing had stirred in the distant shadow of the hedgerow.

Then, just beyond a clump of dark gorse, I could distinguish the
stooping figure of an old woman. Her clothes also were old and
had taken on autumnal hues. Faded with the summer sun and
weather-stained by rain, her skirt and shawl, whatever their original
colours, were in keeping with the landscape, and mellow and unobtru-
sive as the russet-grey on the back and wings of a song-thrush. Some-
times she crept down into the ditch; then came out into the lane
and stooped to take something from the ground, which for the time
being she put into her apron. At last she stood up and shook one of
the guinea-laden branches. She was gathering crab-apples.

What could she want with them ?

The uses of the crab, forgotten long ago in the village, are known
only to the lover of old customs. Verjuice is but a name, pomatum
almost an unread line in the dictionary. Could this old crone, whose
face was brown and wrinkled like the shell of a walnut, season the
dryness of a parish loaf and secretly comfort her elderly heart with
some old-world bowl, in which a roasted crab should bob against her
lips, 'and on her withered dew-lap pour the ale ' ? She looked old
enough even for that. On the ground beside her was a sack half filled.

Imagination refused to picture an orgie so extensive.

She was the first to speak. In the rural parts of this West Country
people do not meet and pass without a word.

•* Nice weather,' said she.

* Beautiful weather,' said I.

' Zo 'tis,' said she, and stepped aside to pour a stream of little
yellow, rosy apples out of her apron into the open mouth of the sack.

' But what be about then, mother 1 What good is it to pick up
such stuff as that ? '

' Lauk-a-massy, master,' she laughed, ' I do often zay to myzelf
this time o' .year I be but like the birds that do pick a liven off the
hedges.'

' But what do you do with them ? '

•' Zell 'em.'

' And what do they do with them ? '

' Pay vor 'em.'

In spite of rags and poverty she was a humorous old soul. How-
ever she presently put a sudden check upon her mirth, and answered
with quiet civility.

' They don't use 'em here,' she explained. ' The man that do
buy 'em o' I do zend 'em to London. I do believe they do use 'em
to gie a bitter flavour to a jelly. I really do.'

1904 THE HARVEST OF THE HEDGEROWS 231

Then she chuckled. The thing seemed so amusing. She was
laughing at an unknown world, distant and strange, where people pay
such heed to the flavour of a jelly.

At the mention of London the recollection of two boys from
Pimlico, whom I had met in a lane about three months before, came
into my mind. Philanthropy had sent them down here, but until
then they had never seen a green field. Their inferences were strange
enough. I wondered what impressions the mind of this old woman
of the hedgerows would gather if suddenly she could be transplanted
to a city street.

' Do you live near here ? '

' I do live across to Sutton,' she answered, ' in the little old cottage
that do lie under the hill.'

' I suppose you've lived there a long time ? '

' All my life, as mid zay,' she laughed. ' I wur out to sarvice
dree year ; but I wur married when I wur nineteen. I wur brought
to the little cottage then, an' vrom thik day to theas I ha'n't never
laid head to piller under another roof.'

It was by the merest accident, and only for the sake of hearing
her talk, that I remarked : ' Then for certain you can't have been to
London to look after the crab-apples.'

In a moment her good-humour vanished. The wrinkles deepened,
and the weather-beaten, upright furrows between her brows. Her
eyes regarded me sharply and with suspicion.

' Who put 'ee up vor to come here an' ax me 'bout that, then ? '
she inquired, angrily.

I asserted my innocence. I pointed out that after all the idea of
a visit to London had been rendered incredible, if not impossible, by
her statement that she had never been away for a night from the
little cottage under the hill.

She scanned me attentively, was satisfied with the explanation,
and consoled.

' Ah, well ! They do laugh at I about that, an' I thought mayhap
you knowed,' she cried merrily. ' I have a-bin to London. An'
I ha'n't never a-bin away vrom home. An' I baint no liar for all
that.'

She delighted in this quibbling manner of the clowns of the six-
teenth century. But old-fashioned West Country folk still love to
riddle in their speech. She stood expectant, eager for an invitation
to go on, but fully determined to loiter.

' I can't make that out,' said I.

* An' never went inzide a house,' said she.
I only shook my head.

* Nor zet voot in a street.'

She paused ; then raised her voice in the excitement of success,
' Nor so much as laid out a penny-piece vor a bit or a zup.'

232 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

It was no good. I implored her to relieve me from further mental
effort by telling me without delay ; but, once started, her story became
a monologue — an epic of the ' little old cottage that do lie under the
hill.' For the emotions which prompted her to undertake that
memorable journey were still warm in her heart, and they carried
her back even to the days of early motherhood under that little ridge
of brown thatch.

' Wull, then, master,' she cried, ' I'll just tell ee how it all corned
about. My man an' I we dragged up a terr'ble long family, we did.
Massy 'pon us ! Things wur different in them days. We did all goo
out in groun' to work then, wimmin an' men. An' need o' it too.
There werden much wheaten bread vor poor volks them days. The
wimmin vokes an' maidens did all goo out a bit to leasey a'ter the
wheat wur a-hauled. We did carr' the corn down to mill. But la !
The little grist-mill down to brook, he is but vower walls an' a hatch-
hole now. He vailed in years agone. Miller couldn' make a liven, an'
zo he gi'ed un up. 'Tis the big mills, zo the tale is, do zell zo low.
But I tell 'ee what, master, vokes wur jollier, one wi' another,
them times than they be now. Ah ! They mid eat better victuals
nowadays, but there's more pride. They baint zo simple as they
wur. All they do want now is to save up a vew ha'pence, an' put
viner clothes to their backs, an' forget who they be.'

She stopped to laugh. No philosopher ever took a more genial
view of human folly than this old woman of the hedgerow.

' But I wur a-gwaine to tell 'ee,' she went on, suddenly remembering
that the visit to London was the real subject before us. ' Iss. We
had zixteen, an' reared 'em all but one. Nine o' 'em bwoys, an' all
growed up tall an' straight as the poplar trees along the churchyard
wall. Ay, 'twur a many bellies to vill. An' a house o' childern,
master, is like a nest o' drushes wi' their mouths ever agape. But
somehow or another God-a-Mighty did send a crust. An' then the
biggest bwoy growed up to sar a little a bird-kippen, or to drave
roun' the wold hoss for the chaffcutter or the cider-maken. An' the
biggest maid did mind the childern for I to go out. An' zo we knocked
along till the bwoys had a-growed up hardish lads like. An' then there
wur a rabbit, now an' then. Wull, there wur a rabbit pretty often, on
along then. An' then there corned a bother. An' two o' 'em, master,
they had a-tookt the Queen's shillen an' drinked un, an' marched
off wi' the sergeant wi' the colours in their hats, afore the summons
wur out. An' they wouldn't none o' 'em bide here in parish. Two
o' 'em went to furrin parts, but we never heard o' 'em since, an'
whither they be live or dead is more 'an I can tell. They be all o'
'em one place or tother, an' I hope they be doen well. An' the
maidens be all married away. Little Benjamin he wur the last to
goo. I wur terr'ble sorry, too. But I said : " 'Tis no more 'an a
brood o' dunnocks, an' when they be vlush they do vly." '

1904 THE HARVEST OF THE HEDGEROWS 233

She paused again, picked up half a dozen crab-apples, and dropped
them into her apron.

' But I wur a-gwaine to tell 'ee,' she quickly resumed. ' Ben-
jamin's wife she did use to zend a letter, an' one o' the school childern
did read un out to me. He wur a porter to London, but house rent,
her zaid, wur most wonderful dear. When I wur out quiet a-picken
berries, Benjamin wur a'most for ever in my mind. Mus' be up ten
year agone, an' I carr'd in nineteen peck o' berries. I do mind 'twur
nineteen peck at tenpence in to factory. I can see the foreman dyer
now, out in yard a-measuren o' 'em out wi' a peck measure. An'
the men wur all a-chacklen about the next year's wayzgoose. " What ?
zaid I, " do 'ee arrange next zummer's holiday afore the winter is
begun ? " " We be gwaine to London for the day, an' you can
come too if you be a-minded," zaid he, though to be sure 'twur no
more 'an a joke. But jus' the very nick o' time the master his own
zelf corned by ; an' the foreman dyer he up an' laughed. " Here's
Mary do think to go to London wi' we next zummer." Then they
did all grin at I. But the master, he said . " How many years have
'ee brought berries in to I, Mary ? " I zaid : " Tis a score or one-an'-
twenty, master." Zaid he : " Come an' ax me next zummer-fair, an'
I'll gie 'ee a ticket, Mary." An' wi' the very zame on he went.

' I thought a lot about thik ticket. I thought a lot about Ben-
jamin too. There corned a letter in the spring, that zaid that Ben-
jamin's wife — 'tis his second wife — had just a-got her third. I wur
a-picken watercresses, an' 'twur most wonderful cold. I really do
believe I veeled wolder them days 'an now I be sich a ancient wold
'ooman. I do mind I wur wet-vooted an' vinger-cold. That wur
about the time my wold man wur a-tookt. I thought then I werden
a-gwaine to live myself zo very long. I did long to zet eyes 'pon
Benjamin — most terr'ble.

' Wull, when corned zummer-fair I bucked up courage an' in I
went. There wur the ticket sure 'nough. I carried un home. But
lauk ! Afore night 'twur the talk o' all the parish, an' folk did run
in an' out all day long for a week to look at un. An' I got a basket
o' apples an' a papern bag o' lollipops for the childern to carr' in my
pocket. An' the neighbours they all zaid : " Do 'ee step in an' pick
what viewers you do want in the early marnen afore you do start."
Zo I had a tutty — a nosegay, master, bigger — ay, zix times zo big
as the biggest picklen cabbage that ever wur growed. A'most zo
zoon as the zun wur up I wur 'pon the road. An' 'twur sich a beautiful
day, wi' a dew like vrost, an' the sky misty clear in the marnen. The
train did start at vive. But I waited vor un a good half -hour, I did.
An' on the road the foreman dyer he said : " You do know how to
act when you do get there, don't 'ee, Mary ? " An' I told un : " My
son 'ull be at the station for certain sure."

•' But when we got out to London station, master, sure there wur

234 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

niwer sich a hurry-push in theas world afore. Made I that maze-
headed I wur bound to zit down 'pon the seat to let 'em all pass.
But zb zoon as one train wur gone thsre wur another. I wur afeard
o' my life to move, an' there I zot. An' when corned to a lull like,
I up an' zaid to a porter : " Can 'ee run an' tell young Benjamin
Bracher that his mother is here ? " Zo he said : " Who ? " An' I
told un again. " I niwer heard the name," said he. " But he's a
porter like yourself to London Station." " Which station ? " he axed
me. " Why, London Station," said I. " Oh, there's vifty London
stations an' more," said he. " Then how shall I get at un ? " said I.
" Do 'ee know where he do live ? " he axed me. " 'Tis in Silver
Street," said I. " There's a hundred Silver Streets," said he ; an'
then he wur gone.

' They ha'n't got no time to talk to a body in London. I wur
afeard to move. I put the basket o' apples under the seat, an' there
I zot.

' Come midday the zun did strike down most terr'ble hot, an'
the place were like a oven. The nosegay o' vlowers beginned to
quail in my han'. Zoon enough they went off zo dead as hay. Volk
did stop an' stare at me. The childern did turn their heads. But
there I zot.

' I wur afeard o' my life to move. Come a'ternoon I put down
my han' for my hankercher to mop my face. But the lollipops had
all a-melted drough the papern bag, an' he wur a-stickt to my pocket.
Zo I just pat my face wi' my sleeve. An' there I zot.

' I wur too much to a mizmaze, master, ever to think. You
niwer zeed sich crowds, an' like a river never stop. There I zot till
come the cool o' the evenen. An' then the forman dyer corned along.
An' he hollered to me : " Mary, Mary, you'll be lef behine ! " an'
he pushed me on by the shoulders afore un, a'most like a wheelbarrer,
an' bundled me into the train.

' 'Twur midnight when the train got to Yeovil town, an' I had up
vive mile to walk. 'Twur daylight when I got home, an' a marnen
misty-clear like when I started. I took the kay down out o' the
thatch an' put un in kayhole. But fur the life o' me I couldn' turn
un, an' I zot down 'pon step an' cried.'

• In a moment she was merry again.

' Zo now they do ax me if I've a-bin to London,' she said ; ' but
I do laugh wi' the rest.'

She told me in quaint phrase all about the harvest of the hedgerows
— how the blackberries were the first to come, with the black-ripe,
the red, and the green all on one bunch ; and the little pale purple
flowers still in bloom on the same spray, and looking as fresh as spring
until the frost. They were sold not by measure but by weight. It
paid better to pick at a penny when they were plenty than for three-

halfpence when they were scarce. And the dealer he did come — oh,
yes, he did come in a two-wheeled cart twice a week, every week of
his life, and weigh and pay — no trouble about that, but money in
hand paid.

But the privet berries, now, for the dyer, they must wait until
after the frost, when they would pinch soft between finger and thumb,
and leave a deep purple stain. And they must be carried to the fac-
tory in the town. But then — there was many a good sort about in
the village or on the road to give an old woman a lift.

And sloes must wait for the winter too, and some years they were
on the blackthorn bushes so thick as ever they could stick. Really
and truly until it was washed off by the rain they were sometimes
blue with bloom — most beautiful. But they went to the gentry,
mostly to make sloe gin. She had quite a private connection for the
sloes, and the same people bought them year after year.

' Why, you must get quite rich,' said I, ' at this time of the year.'

* I can knock along,' she boasted, ' wold as I be, an' put away
a shillen, too. I've a-bin poor all my life. But I've a-bin happy an'
picked up bread day by day. There is that in the open vields is
more company to I, 'an a street o' volk I don't know. Zunshine or
rain, an' all but the hard vrostes, I do enjoy life. I do. But the
young mus' all run away now-a-days.'

She paused to think. Then suddenly raised her arms above her
head.

' God-A'mighty, master ! ' she cried. ' What mus' it be to be
poor in thik girt place ? *

Appalled at the thought she turned away and bent over her apple-
picking. Yet presently she stood up and was merry again.

I positively suspected that wrinkled old eyelid of a wink.

' I baint a-gwaine to be buried by the parish,' she laughed, ' not I/

But even poverty can keep a good heart under the hedgerows.

WALTER RAYMOND.

236 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

THE UNIONIST FREE TRADERS

THE aims and objects of the Unionist Free Traders are the subject of
the following article, and by Unionist Free Traders I mean Conserva-
tives and Liberal Unionists who mean to remain Unionists as well
as Free Traders, notwithstanding the fact that for the moment the
great bulk of the Unionist party has, under the fascination exercised
by Mr. Chamberlain, given a temporary adhesion to the policy of
Tariff Kefonn. The public has been puzzled by the spectacle of
seeing certain Unionist Free Traders in the House of Commons and
in the country joining the Liberals, and imagine from this that the
Unionist Free Trade movement is nothing more than a secession
from the Unionist party to their opponents. Though it is easy to
see how such a view has arisen, no greater mistake can possibly be
made than to imagine that the Unionist Free Traders, in creating a
separate organisation, are merely making a halfway house for them-
selves in their road to Liberalism. But I shall be asked, if this is so,
what is the meaning of the Unionist Free Traders leaving the Unionist
party, and organising themselves for the political battle. My answer
is that the Unionist Free Traders are organising themselves, not
because they mean to join the Liberals, but because they mean to do
nothing of the kind. If they meant to join the Liberals there would
be no necessity for a separate organisation. Their aims and objects,
their intentions and their policy can be best expressed by stating
what they mean to do. In the first place they mean to maintain
both the Union and Free Trade. Secondly, they mean to remain
Unionists, and to withstand all attempts on the part of the Protec-
tionists to force them to give up their Unionism and become Liberals.
Thirdly, they are determined to organise themselves on a strictly
Unionist basis ; that is, they mean to keep themselves separate from
the party of their late opponents, the Liberals, in order that
when Mr. Chamberlain's policy has been defeated, as it inevitably
will be, at the next General Election, they may be ready to help
reconstitute the Unionist party on a Free Trade basis. In a word,
the Unionist Free Traders mean to make their Free Trade views
effective, by defeating Protection and by reconstructing the Unionist

1904 THE UNIONIST FREE TRADERS 237

party after that defeat on a Free Trade basis. These aspirations
will no doubt be declared ridiculous by our opponents, but at any
rate that is what they are determined to do, and history shows that
parties quite as small in number as they are have accomplished
equally important results.

II

If these are the aims and objects of the Free Trade Unionist party,
how are they to be carried out ? The essential point at the present
moment is, as I have said, for Unionist Free Traders to make their
Free Trade views effective. Though they are equally determined to
make their Unionist views effective, there is at the present moment
little necessity to take special action in regard to the Union, for in
fact the Union is not in danger. Save for a few exceptional men
and a few exceptional constituencies, it is admitted by all who think
clearly and speak honestly that Home Rule is not before the country.
The Liberal party, as a whole, is utterly tired of the issue, and though
the Liberal leaders cannot be expected to stand in a white sheet and
openly abandon Home Rule, it is clear that they have no wish what-
ever to put it before the cause of Free Trade, or to force any one to
choose between the Union and Free Trade. No Liberal Home Ruler,
that is, dreams of declaring that a man cannot be a co-worker with
Liberals for the cause of Free Trade at the next General Election unless
he will proclaim himself a Home Ruler as well as a Free Trader. Such
a coupling of Free Trade and Home Rule is never suggested even by
the most vehement of Liberals. This willingness on the part of the
Liberal party to sink Home Rule at the next election is intensified
by the disillusionment of the Liberals in regard to the Irish party,
which has been proceeding during the last four or five years, and may
be said to have become complete during the present Session. The
Irish Nationalists have proved themselves the remorseless enemies
of almost everything that the Liberals care for. Again, Liberals well
understand that, though not openly expressed, the Irish Nationalists
are Protectionists almost to a man, and would be quite willing, ' when
the proper time comes,' to do a deal with Mr. Chamberlain in order
to secure special Protectionist privileges for Ireland. Therefore the
Unionist Free Traders, while remaining as strong in their support of
the Union as ever, can feel that the essential thing before them at the
present time is the making of their Free Trade views effective. Now
this cannot be accomplished except by opposing Protection under all
its many aliases ; whether in the crude and open form supported by
Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Henry Chaplin, and the Tariff Reform League
or in the apparently milder but in reality equally dangerous form
advocated by Mr. Balfour. But under a system of Parliamentary
Government there is only one effective way of opposing Protection,
and that is to vote for Free Trade. Therefore Unionist Free Traders,
VOL. LVI— No. 330 E

238 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

though the7 are determined to remain Unionists, mean to make their
Free Trade views effective by voting for Free Trade candidates irre-
spective of party. They mean, that is, to give the coup de grace to
Protection. In doing this, however, they need not and do not feel
that they are putting off that reunion and reconstruction of the
Unionist party which is one of their essential aims. On the contrary,
they feel that they can best obtain that object by making the defeat of
the Protectionist Unionists at the polls at the next General Election
as complete as possible. It is as certain as anything can be in human
affairs that if the overthrow of both Chamberlainism and Balfourism
is as overwhelming as the Unionist Free Traders can, and I believe
will, render it, an immense number of Conservatives and Liberal
Unionists who are now under the glamour of Mr. Chamberlain's policy
will be thoroughly disillusioned. Many of them will be found to have
supported Mr. Chamberlain because they thought he was going to
sweep the country, and because they liked the idea of being con-
tributories to a great party victory. When they find that he has
done no such thing, but instead has led them to utter ruin, and when
they see that what two years ago was the strongest and most united
political party in the country has been smashed to atoms, and reduced
to a state of impotence as complete as that which marked the Liberal
party from 1895 till last year, what are likely to be their sentiments in
regard to the men who have led them into a position so deplorable ?
Will not they begin to ask whether Mr. Chamberlain was a wise guide,
and whether they had not better have kept in the old ways, and
maintained the old safe policy which Lord Salisbury represented, and
which the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Ritchie, Lord Balfour of Burleigh,
and Lord George Hamilton were ready and willing to carry on ? It
was not, they will reflect, to ruin and destroy their party that they
followed Mr. Chamberlain, and in the stress of the reaction that will
follow thousands of voices are certain to be raised in favour of the
reconstruction of the party on its old basis, which included Free Trade.
Then will come the opportunity of the Unionist Free Traders — of
those, that is, who, while Free Traders and determined to make their
Free Trade views effective, have refused to join the Liberal party, but
have maintained their Unionism and created a Unionist though
a Free Trade organisation. Unionist Free Traders will be able to
point out that reunion can always be effected by the abandonment of
Protection. They will not, it is needless to say, ask for the sacrifice
of particular individuals, but as long as Protection is abandoned
once and for all they will be ready to reunite with their old friends
and colleagues,

III

I am perfectly prepared to hear it said that this is a dream, and
that the bulk of the Unionist party will never be able to abandon
Protection or to free themselves from the heavy burden of Mr. Chamber-

1904 THE UNIONIST FEEE TEADEES 239

Iain's policy. To this I would reply that a policy adopted so quickly
as the Protectionist policy was adopted may be abandoned with equal
promptitude. When the glamour of a promised victory has departed
from the Chamberlain policy men will find it by no means difficult to
throw over, and will long to return to saner and safer ways. No
doubt the process of reconversion and reconstruction will not be
carried out in a day, and will require time and patience ; but remember
that what the Unionist Free Traders will have to offer will be by no
means insignificant. When the Unionist Free Traders are properly
organised in each constituency, as they will be if the Unionist Free
Traders do their duty, and constitute a firm and compact body outside
the party, but ready to return to it, the temptation to the party
managers to get them once more into the party fold will be immense.
When then the Unionist party managers recognise that they
cannot regain power unless they satisfy the Unionist Free Traders,
they will in the end give the pledges which the Unionist Free
Traders are determined to obtain. It will be said, perhaps, that
this is a delusion, and I shall be told that Mr. Chamberlain and Mr.
Balfour counted the cost of secession before they abandoned the policy
of Free Trade and took up Protection. They knew that they must
lose a great many Free Trade votes, and they will not change their
policy because they have obtained practical proof of the fact. This
argument, however, ignores a very important consideration. Mr.
Chamberlain and Mr. Balfour no doubt knew perfectly well that they
would lose the Unionist Free Trade votes, but they calculated on
obtaining for Protection a wide support from the non-party portion of
the nation, and even from a good number of those who call themselves
Liberals or Radicals. These new adherents they fully believed would
outweigh the Free Trade Unionists. Their calculation has already turned
out ridiculously wrong, and will be still further falsified at the General
Election. Protection has found no adherence among Liberals, and
instead of attracting the non-party men has sent them in thousands,
as the figures of the bye-elections show, to vote for Free Trade can-
didates. I hold then that, if the defeat of Mr. Chamberlain is as
complete at the polls as I believe it will be, the shrewder minds among
the Unionist party managers will realise that reunion with the Unionist
Free Traders is essential unless the party is to wander in the wilder-
ness, as did the Liberal party after its adoption of Home Rule. In
any case the ideal of forming a body whose special aim and object it
shall be to reunite in the future the Unionist party, scattered and
broken by Mr. Chamberlain, is one well worth working for. If we
fail in this part of our policy we shall have done no harm, while if we
succeed we shall have killed Protection for the next fifty years. Per-
sonally I believe we shall succeed in both our aims, i.e. in maintaining
Free Trade and in reuniting the Unionist party on a Free Trade basis.
At any rate it will be far easier for us to succeed in our aim of reuniting

B2

240 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

the party on a Free Trade basis if we make the defeat of the Protec-
tionists as complete as possible at the General Election. Therefore
I hold that the more strongly and earnestly a Unionist Free Trader
desires to remain a Unionist and to bring about the ultimate reunion
of his party, the more ardently should he work to prevent the return of
Protectionists, whether Balfourites or Chamberlainites, at the coming
General Election, and to ensure a crushing victory for Free Trade.
The greater the defeat of the Chamberlainite and Balfourite policy
the more certain is the ultimate reunion of the party. Therefore the
aim of Unionist Free Traders should be to oppose strongly candidates
for Parliament who will not pledge themselves to withstand the
policy of Protection, no matter under what apparently amiable and
innocuous guises it is presented to them, and to give an active and
effective support to Free Trade candidates, irrespective of party.

It is clear from what I have said that those who mean to remain
both Unionists and Free Traders must lose no time in perfecting their
organisation throughout the constituencies. They must not think
that the duty of Unionist Free Traders is merely to save the seats of
the patriotic and high-minded men who sacrificed their political and
official careers rather than abandon Free Trade, and left the Ministry
last autumn. All that is possible must be done to save their seats ;
but a greater and even more important object is to secure a Unionist
bodyguard for Free Trade in every constituency, and to use every
endeavour to defeat Protectionist candidates at the poll. Our ideal
should be to reduce the Protectionist vote in the next House of Com-
mons to the lowest limits, and to make the plebiscite for Free Trade
— for such the next General Election will in fact be — as overwhelming
as possible.

IV

Personally I have no doubt that the organisation of the Unionist
Free Traders and their apparent ability to turn a great number of
elections will have the result of indirectly modifying the views of
the Liberal candidates on many important political questions. That
is, the existence of the Unionist Free Traders will encourage Liberal
candidates to stand up against the faddists and extremists. But
though I strongly hope and desire that this result may be indirectly
produced I am equally strong against the Unionist Free Traders
officially bargaining with the Liberals in regard to the views of their
candidates : and for this reason. If such direct bargaining takes
place it will mean that the Unionist Free Traders will to a certain
extent become responsible for the details of Liberal policy on other
matters than Free Trade, and they will become insensibly drawn into
an alliance with the Liberals so close as to suggest fusion and amalga-
mation. My desire is that no such intimate alliance should take
place, but merely that there should be a working and fighting agree-

1904 THE UNIONIST FBEE TRADE BS 241

ment, i.e. political co-operation for a specific purpose, that of defending
Free Trade. We want to remain free and untrammelled by any strict
or formal alliance. I say this not because I have any particular horror
of a great part of the Liberal creed, or in any sense or form regard
Liberalism as the unclean thing. I say it because I hold that our
object and duty is not directly to modify the Liberal policy or to take
any responsibility in regard to it, but at the present to maintain Free
Trade and in the future to reunite the Unionist party. If we become
in any way responsible for Liberal policy this task may be rendered
infinitely harder or even impossible. Again, if as a party we should
attempt to dictate as to the views of Liberal candidates instead of
merely co-operating heartily with them on one issue, they in return
would very naturally desire to dictate the policy of those Free Trade
Unionists who will be returned by the co-operation of Liberal votes.
We must not interfere with them or they with us. Each must trust
the other, and act in confidence and in good faith.

I hope I have made the position and aims and objects of the Unionist
Free Traders clear. To state them once more : We are both Unionists
and Free Traders, and mean that both the Union and Free Trade shall
prevail. But with us Free Trade is no mere counsel of perfection, no
academic opinion. We mean to make our Free Trade views effective
by voting and working for Free Traders irrespective of party wherever
they are opposed by Protectionists. That is our immediate object.
Our ultimate object is equally clear and equally dictated by our
determination to maintain Free Trade. We realise that unless Free
Trade is held by both parties in the State to be, like the Monarchy,
beyond political dispute, Free Trade cannot be absolutely safe. There-
fore we mean to remain Unionists and to use every endeavour to reunite
and reconstruct the Unionist party on a Free Trade basis. This, we
believe, we shall be able to accomplish after Mr. Chamberlain has led
the Unionist party to the ruin which, unhappily, is inevitable at the
next General Election. The position of the Unionist party resembles
one of those surgical cases in which a bone which has been broken
and badly set has to be broken again before it can be properly rejoined
and healed. To adopt another metaphor, only after it has been purged
in the fires of a General Election can the Unionist party be reunited.
The more complete is that process of purgation by fire the stronger will
the reunited party prove. Therefore the Unionist Free Traders can
adopt no half-measures and no timorous courses, but both in the
interests of Free Trade and of their party must strike with all their
might against the evils of Protection.

J. ST. LOE STRACHEY,
Editor of ' The Spectator.'

242 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

THE POPE AND CHURCH MUSIC

A REJOINDER

IT was inevitable that any protest against the Papal motu proprio on
the subject of Church music should arouse the displeasure of those
who regard a Papal decree as being something more than an expres-
sion of human opinion and individual intention. It was inevitable,
too, that musical technicalities should be introduced into a question
which, if examined coldly and without the bias from which neither
the professionally religious nor the professionally artistic can be
altogether free, resolves itself into a matter of personal taste and,
I may add, personal temperament.

I may perhaps be excused if I regard it as also inevitable that
the addition of the words — ' a Roman Catholic protest ' — to the heading
of my article in the June number of this Review should have excited
the wrath of a section of the Roman Catholic body whose mouthpiece
the Rev. Ethelred Taunton makes himself in his reply to me under
the title, suggestive of that of a popular play now running at a London
theatre, The Pope and the Novelist.

I have reason to believe that had it not been for the words — ' a
Roman Catholic Protest' — which appeared as a sub-title to my original
article Mr. Taunton and others of his communion would have been
content to regard that article in the light in which it was written.
They would perhaps have recognised the fact that I disclaimed any
intention of appealing to the clerically minded, and that I wrote
merely from the position, as it were, of the man in the street, who
may love music and its expression without being an expert in its
science.

I feel that in replying to Mr. Taunton's strictures upon the effrontery
of a novelist presuming to criticise the action of a Pope I am some-
what at a disadvantage, inasmuch as I am replying, not to a Roman
Catholic layman, but to a Roman Catholic priest.

Mr. Taunton in his article bases his argument against the justness
of my e protest ' largely upon personalities. I would fain have kept
such matters at a distance as being neither profitable, relevant, nor,
I would add, dignified. He alludes to me as a bored convert. I
frankly admit the impeachment, so far as my experiences of modern

1904 THE POPE AND CHURCH MUSIC 243

English Roman Catholicism are concerned ; but as I live chiefly
among Continental Catholics I am happily little affected by the ennui
which he rightly describes me as feeling. I would only observe that
had Mr. Taunton substituted a stronger term for that of ' bored '
he would have more correctly described my condition.

Mr. Taunton goes on to say, with a touch of sacerdotalism admir-
ably in harmony with the times of St. Gregory : * I will not say for a
moment that the laity, hereditary Catholics or neophytes, have not
got their rights,' and again : ' While I have sympathy with any move-
ment which seeks by legitimate methods to obtain that recognition
of the rights of the laity which the Church has always acknowledged,
I will have nothing to do with the bored convert except to wish that
he would take his boredom elsewhere.'

I do not forget that I am replying to a priest, and I am happy
if I have afforded Mr. Taunton an opportunity of scoring a point to
his credit with his ecclesiastical superiors at my expense. I would
remind him, however, that indifference is a far more difficult matter
to treat than boredom, and that there are countless Catholics in the
world, as there are countless Protestants, who remain within their
respective communions merely because they are indifferent to priestly
pretensions. I wish, to quote Mr. Taunton's own words, to do my
spiriting gently, and I trust he will not think me discourteous towards
his order if I suggest that, since it is not converts only who are bored,
he might with advantage search for the true cause of the boredom.

I will, however, pass from personal matters to the consideration
of Mr. Taunton's replies to my definition of the recent Papal edict on
Church music as an artistic and psychological blunder. Mr. Taunton
here becomes more interesting, inasmuch as he is expressing his views
on a subject which must appeal to many, and he allows himself momen-
tarily to forget my unfortunate individuality in his defence of a branch
of that art to which he is well known to be deeply attached.

Mr. Taunton reminds me that I have made an admission — an
admission which he qualifies as being unnecessary — to the effect that
I am no musical expert. I would submit that in this fact lies the
strength of my argument. I have entrenched myself behind human
nature, as the man in the street has, fortunately for human progress,
ever entrenched himself. At the same time I think I may say without
undue vanity that my musical education has not been wholly neglected,
and that music to me has ever been the first of the arts, although I
cannot, of course, meet Mr. Taunton on strictly technical ground.

He asserts that I have missed the true gist of the matter ; that the
spiritual or even artistic point of view has not troubled me at all ;
and that I have forgotten the elementary fact that music was made
for men, and not men for music.

I agree with Mr. Taunton that music was made for men ; but
does he not forget the elementary fact that all men are not priests;

244 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

that all men have not the clerical temperament ; that many, nay,
perhaps the majority of human beings are emotional rather than
genuinely religious, and that their religion can only be stirred through
the senses ?

I am aware that a religion which is of the senses alone is regarded
with reasonable distrust by those whose faith rests on a firmer basis.
Nevertheless — and here Mr. Taunton must forgive the novelist — the
majority of men are swayed by the senses, and the majority of men
are not priests. Pope Pius X., I would submit, in inculcating the
principle that all ecclesiastical music should be modelled as nearly
as possible to the Gregorian form, has forgotten this fact, and Mr.
Taunton ignores it.

Mr. Taunton declares that I have altogether misunderstood or
misrepresented the Pope's attitude towards Church music.

Writing, as I do, with his Holiness's ' Instruction ' before me, I
must affirm that I have done neither the one nor the other.

Pius X. observes that it is fully legitimate to lay down the following
rule : ' The more closely a composition for church approaches in its
movement, inspiration, and savour the Gregorian form, the more
sacred and liturgical it becomes ; and the more out of harmony it is
with that supreme model, the less worthy is it of the temple.'

And again : ' The ancient Gregorian chant must, therefore, be
largely restored to the function of public worship.'

The Pope goes on to state that the qualities possessed by the
Gregorian chant are also possessed by the classic polyphony, espe-
cially that of the Roman school as represented by Pierluigi da Pales-
trina. This classic polyphony, the Holy Father observes, agrees so
admirably with the Gregorian chant — the supreme model of all sacred
music — that it has been found worthy of a place side by side with it
in the more solemn functions of the Church.

I can assure Mr. Taunton, and others of my Roman Catholic clerical
critics who adopt a less honourable form of criticism than he, that I
fully understand the true aim and scope of the Pope's juridical code of
sacred music, and I think that the clauses from which I have quoted
admit of no misinterpretation. It is idle to assert that Pius X. means
one thing when he obviously means another, and Mr. Taunton's
quibble about the Pope not confining the -music of the Church to plain
song, ' as one would think from Mr. Bagot's article,' will scarcely
deceive any attentive reader of the Papal molu proprio. If modern
music is admitted at all into the offices of the Church, it is only under
such stringent conditions as to make it almost indistinguishable from the
Gregorian form except to musical experts, who, it may be observed,
are not so numerous as Mr. Taunton seems to imagine.

I cannot, of course, expect to convince Mr. Taunton and his friends
that I am not so inartistic, or so incapable of realising that music has
a spiritual side, as they profess to believe. The compromising words —

1904 THE POPE AND CHURCH MUSIC 245

' a Roman Catholic Protest ' — which headed my first article have clearly
rendered any justification in their eyes of my position impossible, for
reasons to which I shall refer hereafter.

In that article I ventured to assert that the Pope's attempt to
enforce the universal adoption of Gregorian, plain song, or the classic
polyphony in Roman Catholic places of worship was a threefold
blunder — artistic, psychological, and, if I may so express it, diplo-
matic. I was very well aware that such a statement would arouse
the wrath of the sacristy, but I must frankly own to indifference on
this point. I expressly stated that I was not appealing to certain
minds. Nevertheless the sacristy has answered me. I fear that I
am neither convinced by its arguments nor alarmed at its anger.
It is not a little difficult to separate Mr. Taunton's arguments from
his personalities in his article entitled The Pope and the Novelist, but
I will endeavour to deal fairly by the former, both from his point of
view and from my own ; with the latter, as they are couched in terms
which make it impossible for me to ignore them, I propose to deal
later on in these pages.

Mr. Taunton observes that he and I differ fundamentally on the
philosophy of sacred music, and I readily admit the fact. I confess
that, in common with a vast number of my fellow creatures of all
nations, I regard music, whether it be sacred or profane, from a
broader and no doubt a more material standpoint than that of the
expert or the religiously minded. If music be an art, like all art, it
must surely be progressive. Mr. Taunton himself unconsciously
supplies me with an argument to illustrate my contention that the
Pope's action, however laudable theoretically, and however logical
from the strictly scientific point of view, is an offence against art.

' From the days of Gregory I. (604), if not earlier,' says Mr. Taunton,
* the Popes have issued decrees on the subject and Councils have
legislated.' If I am not mistaken, Benedict XIV. issued a decree
even more drastic than the motu proprio of Pius X. in the hopes of
' reforming ' Church music. I would ask Mr. Taunton with whom
lay the victory, with Popes and Councils, or with the mass of the people
whose ideals had progressed since the year 604, and whose musical
needs had developed with the centuries ?

In a word, artistic progress triumphed against the ecclesiastical
love of retrogression, as it may confidently be expected to triumph
again to-day.

It will, of course, be objected that corruption and decay, rather
than artistic progress, was the result of ignoring the decrees of Popes
and Councils to which Mr. Taunton alludes, and the low standard of
Church music in Italy and Spain will be pointed to as an example.
I submit — and here I must again observe that I am not appealing to
the professionally religious or to the musical purist — that there may
be something to be said from the psychological point of view even for

246 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

the profane and theatrical music in Italian churches which so shocks
Mr. Taunton, and which the Abbe Perosi (for Mr. Taunton is in error
when he affirms that this insipid and unoriginal composer had no hand
in the Pope's project) and Pius X. very rightly wish to reform.

Mr. Taunton waxes indignant at the very idea of defending such
inartistic enormities as the rendering of a motif from the Traviata or
similar profane music during a Mass, and he professes to believe that
I defend such practices from an ' artistic ' point of view ! He has
either not read my article attentively or, as I fear is more likely, in his
anxiety to please those who had decided that I must be ' sat upon '
he has preferred to place a false construction on what he read. I
commented upon the practice of adapting light opera music to the
Mass purely from a psychological standpoint. Mr. Taunton, by the
way, jumps at an unwarrantable conclusion when he argues that I
heard Bizet's VArlesienne from a shilling front seat in a London
sanctuary, and that I, therefore, could not have studied the faces of
the congregation. When I attend a Roman Catholic church in
England I sit as near as I can to the door, lest there should be a
sermon.

To return to my argument it does not seem to strike Mr. Taunton
and the Pope that human beings are not all cast in the clerical mould,
and that temperaments differ in all classes, and among all people.
Mr. Taunton, to quote his own words, is proud to take his stand as a
musician by the side of the fearless Pius X., who recalls us to a better
sense of true art, and I congratulate him on taking up so elevated a
position. At the same time I am proud to stand by the side of any
Italian peasant whose devotions are not interfered with by the fact
that the organist is rattling out an operatic melody. Verdi's music
probably appeals to the spiritual side of some natures quite as much
as ' classic polyphony ' does to those of Mr. Taunton and Pope Pius X.
We do not all want to be recalled to the spiritual and mental conditions
of the sixth century, nor even to those of the fifteenth century.

I feel that I must not insist too much upon this point, or my Roman
Catholic critics will accuse me of upholding the performance of drinking
songs during Mass.

Mr. Taunton makes the very surprising statement that music by
itself is vague unless it has associations. If it be not too presumptuous
to differ from a musical expert, I would reply that, as a humble lover
of Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, and many smaller masters, I have
not found this to be the case. It can scarcely be necessary to inform
Mr. Taunton that I am not a religious person ; it is, I suppose, merely
my novelist's imagination that makes me prefer a movement from a
Beethoven symphony as a spiritual and intellectual aid to all the
plain song or classic polyphony ever chanted by priests.

I have already stated in my first article my reasons for believing
the recent action of Pope Pius X. to be a triple blunder, and I need

1904 THE POPE AND CHUBGH MUSIC 247

not, therefore, repeat them. Mr. Taunton has declared that I have
misunderstood the Pope's instructions. I contend that I have not
done so, and that if the obvious intentions of his Holiness are loyally
carried out, music specially composed for the Church by great masters
can never again be heard ; that a large quantity of music of minor
artistic value which yet appeals to thousands of people of all classes
is banished ; and that the complete exclusion of instrumental music
except under very special and restricted conditions is to be deplored.

Mr. Taunton's arguments, as I have said, do not convince me,
while his assertion that I have misunderstood the Pope's intentions
is manifestly absurd. The Pope speaks too plainly to be misunder-
stood. We are, as I remarked in my previous article, confronted by
another instance of the perpetual struggle on the part of the priest-
hood to force the world to move backward. Let Mr. Taunton honestly
confess the truth. He must admit that, when all is said and done,
there must always be those to whom the forms of music made obli-
gatory by the Pope appeal, and those to whom they are a weariness
to the spirit and a hindrance rather than an aid to devotion. The
latter may not be, indeed, I am sure that they are not, ' musicians '
in the technical sense, which evidently alone commands Mr. Taunton's
sympathies ; but they exist, and exist in very large numbers in every
country. So large a body are they, indeed, that their opposition has
stultified those former decrees of Popes and Councils to which Mr.
Taunton alludes. In whatever other ways I may be misunderstood,
I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. I do not, as Mr.
Taunton would infer, uphold from an artistic point of view the use
of that theatrical music which the Pope rightly condemns. I merely
observe that the Pope and his advisers have ignored the fact that all
men are not clerics, and that few of us, save those who are clerics,
wish to revert to the sixth century. However disagreeable it may
be to Mr. Taunton and his supporters, the fact remains that thousands
of Roman Catholics in this country and millions on the Continent and
in America regret and deplore the Pope's action. Many that I have
spoken to content themselves with shrugging their shoulders and
declaring their intention of only attending Low Masses so soon as the
Papal order is put into force. No doubt this attitude, were it not for
diminished offertories, will be more pleasing to the English Roman
Catholic clergy than a ' protest ' which might appear to question their
dearly loved ' authority.'

I now, with considerable reluctance, pass to the consideration of
Mr. Taunton's personal attacks upon myself. I can assure him that
I feel no resentment on account of them, for I am fully aware that in
making them he is only the mouthpiece of his superiors, who have
long been unwilling openly to attack me lest by so doing they should
draw attention to my writings. I can but apologise to my readers
for touching upon personal matters ; but those who have read Mr.

248 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY Aug.

Taunton's article in the July number of this Keview will, I think,
recognise that the responsibility for their introduction does not rest
with me.

Mr. Taunton prefaces his criticism of my previous article in this
Review by examining what he calls my ' position.' I am grateful
to him for having done so, for he has afforded me an opportunity of
stating publicly what it is of little use to state in private. He resents
the fact that my previous paper bore the sub-title of ' A Roman
Catholic Protest.' He states that I have thrown myself ' heart and
soul into the Quirinal party.' I pass over, as unnecessary to notice
here, other remarks which appear to me to be irrelevant, and to have
been written more with a view to please others than to damage me.

Mr. Taunton and his supporters must now forgive me if I examine
my ' position ' from another point of view, and I will do it as briefly
as possible.

Some years ago, in 1899, I published an article in the Nuova
Antologia entitled ' L'Inghilterra si fara cattolica ? ' Although it
touched upon no theological question, and was of a purely speculative
nature, my statements regarding the inaccuracy and exaggeration in
the returns periodically sent by Cardinal Vaughan to Rome as to the
numbers and importance of the converts received into the Church,
coupled with the fact that the article attracted considerable attention,
gave great offence to the English Roman Catholic party. Since that
occurrence, although I have studiously avoided attacking any dogma
or article of faith, with a single exception, of the Church, I have been
persistently accused of doing so. I have written from a political and a
social standpoint only against the temporal pretensions of the Vatican
and in favour of United Italy. The expressions put into the mouths of
characters in my novels have been asserted to be my own views ! An
obviously inartistic and unfair way of judging a writer of fiction.
Were any proof needed of the bitterness of the English Roman Catholic
body as a whole towards any Roman Catholic differing from the
Vatican politically, Mr. Taunton's remarks as to my ' position '
would amply provide it. 3

It is true that I am a ' convert.' But in view of the fact that it
has been repeatedly asserted by certain prominent English Roman
Catholics that I only became a ' convert ' four or five years ago in
order to make ' copy ' out of the Roman Church, I take this oppor-
tunity of observing that I joined that Church three-and- twenty
years ago.

Many reasons have been assigned to explain why I, an English
Roman Catholic, should, as Mr. Taunton expresses it, have thrown
myself heart and soul into the Quirinal party and written against
the temporal policy of the Vatican. I proposed for the hand of a
daughter of a well-known ' black ' house in Rome and was refused,
and therefore wrote against the ' black ' party out of pique. I may

1904 THE POPE AND CHURCH MUSIC 249

here observe that it has never been my misfortune to be refused by
any Roman lady, ' black ' or otherwise, or by her family ; and also
that, under somewhat exceptional circumstances not often enjoyed by
a foreigner, I made a study of the political and social questions relating
to Vaticanism for seven years before venturing to write about them.
I was the tool of unscrupulous anti-clerical journalists ; I abused my
religion in order to make money. These and many other equally
fantastic and dishonourable reasons have been advanced and widely
circulated, I regret to say, by English Vaticanists, who well know that
they were unfounded, in the hopes of gradually discrediting my
literary work with the public ; and a well-known ' converted ' ecclesi-
astic has not been wanting to take an active and untiring part in
disseminating them.

I am, as I have said before, grateful to Mr. Taunton for having
been more courageous and more honourable in his methods than some
of his supporters, and for having given me an opportunity of
publicly explaining my ' position,' and of denying certain statements
circulated with no other object than to damage my reputation as a
writer. I hope he will understand that I respect an open attack,
however bitterly it may be made. What I cannot respect is the
system of dealing secret blows on the part of those who well knew my
political views long before I put them into print, and who have until
now been afraid to answer me in a straightforward manner.

In none of my writings have I ever attacked a dogma or article
of faith of the Roman Church, with the single exception of the dogma
of infallibility, which has been attacked by some of the greatest
Catholic writers on the Continent, and which may be said to be at
least as much a dogma of political as of religious import. My per-
sonal belief or disbelief in religious doctrines I have kept rigidly to
myself as being altogether outside my sphere to discuss in print. In
my Roman novels British convert fanaticism is, it is true, held up to
ridicule and compared with the moderate and unaggressive attitude
of the vast majority of Continental Catholics ; but my English Roman
Catholic critics are very well aware that I have not attacked any
definite dogma, except the one to which I have already alluded. I
imagine that they would have been better pleased with me had I
done so.

Mr. Taunton and others resent my application of the term Roman
Catholic to myself or to any protest penned by me. I would ask
them on what grounds they do so.

If the authorities of the Roman Church disapprove of my attitude
from a dogmatic point of view an obvious course is open to them.
Until this course is adopted I am, I submit, at least officially a member
of the Roman Church, and as such I have as good a right to qualify
myself as a Roman Catholic as any other English convert, layman or
ecclesiastic.

250 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

•o-

I regret to disappoint Mr. Taunton and his party, but they must
not be surprised if I decline to be silenced by cheap ridicule. There
are many, as good Catholics as they, who are honest enough to dis-
tinguish between opposition to Vaticanism as a political and social
power and open opposition to the Church as a religious body.

As I have already pointed out, a man, even if he have the mis-
fortune to be a novelist, must either be in the Church of Rome or out
of it. There are only two methods by which he can forfeit the right
officially to define himself as a Roman Catholic — namely, voluntary
retirement or formal excommunication. I confess that the prospect
of the latter does not arouse my superstitious fears sufficiently to
tempt me to discount its terrors by taking the former step, much as
my doing so would gratify my critics. The accident of having been
born in the nineteenth instead of the sixth or even the fifteenth
century robs the priestly anathema of the terrors with which it might
otherwise have inspired me. I fear that Mr. Taunton will attribute
this to defective imagination on the part of a novelist who has ventured
to criticise the musical programme of a Pope.

RICHARD BAGOT.

1904

TO EXPLORE ARABIA BY BALLOON

THE object of the present paper is to indicate the reasonable practi-
cability of investigating, at inconsiderable risk to human life, a land
which, hitherto bidding defiance to the boldest explorers, has through
all time remained untraversed by civilised man, yet one to which
perhaps before all other lands of the wondrous East there attaches
more absorbing interest, more of marvel and mystery, and which
moreover may, for all that has been inferred to the contrary, be
found to yield the richest prizes of discovery. The country to which
we refer is Central Arabia, and the mode of approach that we advo-
cate is one which, while it appeals to a spirit of highest enterprise,
involves no mere wild or untried scheme. The true roadway across
the barrier presented not only by the physical difficulties of a water-
less wilderness but also by the hostility of native fanaticism is, we
are convinced, not by the desert but by sky. And here it cannot be
said that such previous trials and experience as we have to judge
from offer any really adverse argument. Let us carefully examine
the case as we find it.

The lamentable termination of Andree's dash to the Pole may
have, indeed, for a while diverted the public mind from the con-
templation of that perfectly legitimate and logical application of
modern science and skill — the exploration of inaccessible tracts of the
globe by balloon. It might, indeed, seem as though for the present
the world is standing watching the modern airship, and the yet more
recently conceived though somewhat visionary flying-machine, in the
hope that these will prove capable of achieving what the balloon has
as yet failed to accomplish. Yet the results of past months go to
prove that we cannot hope, at least until great advances have been
made, that any form of aerial motor will be able, holding a definite
course of its own, to contend with the streams and storms which
prevail but a little way above the earth's surface.

On the other hand, it should on no account be forgotten that the
balloon in Andree's hands, and in his peculiar circumstances, cannot
be said to have had a reasonably fair trial. Owing to the exigencies
of the case, the balloon, which seems after all to have hardly been the
best for the exceptional purpose in hand, had to be kept inflated for

251

252 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

nearly three weeks, while the intrepid navigators were waiting for
their wind, during all which time leakage was going on at a known
and very appreciable rate ; and thus it came about that in the end
Andree was constrained to commit himself to a wind that was not
wholly favourable. To have been entirely in the right direction it
should have been due south, whereas on the eve of starting it veered
somewhat west of south, and, with fatal allurement ' whistling through
the woodwork of the shed and flapping the canvas,' urged the voyagers
prematurely to their ill-fated venture. And other conditions must
have told, and perhaps more seriously, against the success of that
hazardous expedition. The extremely, low temperature near the Pole
would not only cause shrinkage of the gas, but also a constant deposi-
tion of the weight of condensed moisture, if not of snow, on the surface
of the balloon.

But over and above all, the mode adopted for the controlling of
the balloon would be very largely against the possibility of a pro-
longed voyage. This mode, it will be remembered, was by means of
a trail rope dragging on the ice, which, so long as it was in contact
with earth", would render a rudder sail operative to a small extent.
Its very efficiency, however, depended on its actually slowing down
the speed of the balloon, while it is well known to all aeronauts of
experience that it is an exceedingly difficult manoeuvre to keep a
trail rope dragging on the ground if it is desired to prevent collision
with the earth, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, to avoid loss
of gas, inasmuch as a slight increase of temperature, or drying off of
condensed moisture, may — indeed, is sure after a while to — lift the
rope off the ground, in which case the balloon, rising into upper levels,
is liable to be borne away on currents which may be from almost
any direction, and of which the observer below may have no cognis-
ance. Thus it will have to be acknowledged that Andree set himself
a task of great difficulty, in which the chances were largely against
him ; yet, in spite of all we learn from a message recovered from a
carrier pigeon that at the end of forty-eight hours the voyagers were
full of hope, with their aerial vessel still going strong, and maintaining
with good promise what must certainly have proved to be the longest
sky journey in time of any yet made on our planet.

But let us now turn to the possibilities of balloon travel under
practicable and altogether more favourable circumstances, where
climate, instead of being opposed, would be strongly in the balloon's
favour, and where the utmost advantage could be taken of the winds,
not as they travel more sluggishly near the earth's surface, but as
they blow in strength in the free heavens aloft.

America may fairly claim to have been the first to furnish an
aerial explorer of the first rank as bold and enterprising as he was
confident, who offered, as far back as fifty years ago, to vindicate
the capability of the balloon to accomplish exploration of the globe.

1904 TO EXPLORE ARABIA BY BALLOON 253

His project was to make the transit of the Atlantic by a purely
scientific method of aerial navigation which he himself conceived, and
the soundness of which is upheld by the leading meteorologists of
to-day. It was in 1843 that John Wise wrote to the Lancaster In-
telligencer :

Having from a long experience in aeronautics been convinced that a constant
and regular current of air is blowing at all times from west to east, with a
velocity of from twenty to forty and even sixty miles an hour, according to its
height from the earth, and having discovered a composition which renders silk
or muslin impervious to hydrogen gas, so that a balloon may be kept afloat for
many weeks, I feel confident that with these advantages a trip across the
Atlantic will not be attended with as much real danger as by the common mode
of transition.

Wise further specified that the requisite balloon should be of a
hundred feet diameter, and twenty thousand pounds lifting power,
and were such a craft provided him he announced his readiness to
attempt the proposed venture.

Had this enterprising offer been taken up and successfully carried
through, it cannot be doubted that there would be fewer untravelled
and unexploited regions of the globe than there are to-day. The mere
crossing of the Atlantic on the back of the west wind would have
added nought to our geographical knowledge, but it would have
proved the possibility of utilising the same westerly wind drift —
which we have shortly to consider — to reconnoitre untrodden tracts,
more particularly on the great desert belt of the earth, in compara-
tive safety, at a relatively trifling cost, with great expedition withal,
and yet with full leisure to make notes by the way, as also to sketch
or photograph, not a mere track only as seen by a weary traveller
from the height of a camel's back, but a broad tract with a practicable
horizon of near one hundred miles on either side.

Now, among eminent meteorologists there is a general agreement
of opinion as to such a prevalence of westerly winds aloft as would
well serve the purpose of the aeronaut Arabian explorer. Ferrel,
having shown in his practical treatise that strong wind currents from
the west are in general required by theoretical considerations, goes
on to say that

any one of ordinary observing habits could scarcely live a week upon the
earth without discovering from the motions of the clouds, and especially the
very high cirrus clouds, that the general tendency of the air above is towards
the east.

Again, Espy says :

I have found the true cirrus cloud to average scarcely once a year from any
eastern direction, and when they do come from that direction it is only when
there is a storm 'of uncommon violence in the east. Mr. Ley also, in his
numerous observations of the cirrus clouds, almost universally found them'to
have a motion towards the east from which they rarely deviated.

VOL. LVI — No. 330 S

254 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY Aug.

Observations of the directions of clouds at Zi-ka-wei, 31° 12'
N. lat., 121° 26' E. long., and again at Colonia Tover, Venezuela,
lat. 10° 26', indicate that the principal component of motion above
is an eastern one.

But there are other indications of the drift of upper currents
"besides that afforded by visible clouds. Thus Ferrel adduces as facts
of striking significance :

On the 1st of May, 1812, the island of Barbadoes was suddenly obscured by
a shower of ashes from an eruptive volcano of St. Vincent, West Indies, more
than a hundred miles to the westward. Also on the 20th of January, 1835, the
volcano of Coseguina, Central America, lying in the belt of the north-easterly
trade winds, sent forth great quantities of lava and ashes, and the latter were
borne in a direction just contrary to that of the surface winds, and lodged in
the island of Jamaica, 800 miles to the E.N.E.

With regard to the volcanic eruption of the island of Sumbawa,
about two hundred miles east of Java, Lyell says : ' On the side of
Java the ashes were carried to the distance of three hundred miles,
and two hundred and seventeen miles towards Celebes.' Some
of the finest particles, says Mr. Crawford, were transported to the
islands of Amboyna and Banda, which last is about eight hundred
miles from the site of the volcano, although the south-east monsoon
was then at its height. According to Mr. Forbes, the dust cloud
from the eruption of Krakatoa was carried on the high winds to no
less than twelve hundred miles eastward.

No less convincing is the evidence of the winds as actually en-
countered on lofty mountains. Leopold von Buch says, with regard
to the Peak of Teneriffe : ' It is hard to find any account of an ascent
of the peak in which the strong west wind which has been met with
on the summit has not been mentioned.' Again, on Pike's Peak, the
observations of the Signal Service, during ten years, show the wind
to blow very constantly towards a direction somewhat north of east.
So, from the top of Mount Washington, Loomis found the resultant
direction of the wind to be west by north. So, again, at Mount
Alibut, two hundred miles west of Irkutsk, and over seven thousand
feet high, a very constant and strong W.N.W. wind is observed.

And it should be noted that it is when we approach nearer to
equatorial latitudes that we find greater regularity in the winds, even
such as blow at lower levels. It is a well-known fact that over parts
of the Australian wilds there are prevalent upper winds from the
north-west. Enduring westerly winds blow across Peru and Brazil ;
while undoubtedly across Thibet powerful and long-lasting gales,
possibly connected with the monsoons, are the heritage of the country.
Equally Js this the case with respect to the seaboard of Asia, of which
we have particularly to speak, due to a cause which at least is un-
varying— namely, the great rarefaction of the atmosphere over the
centre of that continent. It is possible to prophesy almost to the

1901 TO EXPLORE ARABIA BY BALLOON 255

inside of a week as to the coining of the south-west monsoon. And in
all cases when we pass beyond these surface winds into the upper
currents we find these currents are fast, an estimate of their speed
being deducible from the general law that the velocity of currents
increases from the lowest to the highest clouds at the rate of about
three miles an hour for each thousand feet of height.

Probably there is no unexplored tract of the earth better adapted
for an initial trial, or more likely to yield interesting results to an
aerial traveller, than the heart of the great Arabian Peninsula. The
prospects of discovering productive regions hitherto unknown by such
a survey will be discussed in due place, while the comparative certainty
with which the proposed transit of the country could be effected can
need little insisting on. The writer has learnt from veteran officers
of the P. and 0. service that from west to east across Arabia, as far
as indications go, there is every probability of finding a favouring
wind, and one persistently blowing overhead, if the right time of
year be chosen. Moreover, Mr. D. G. Hogarth, whom, as a recent and
reliable authority, I shall have to quote farther, states, from copious
information, that the tract from the desert of Sinai to the centre of
the Arabian peninsula ' is swept by an eternally westerly wind, which
keeps the Libyan sands ever moving towards the Nefud.'

This is encouraging information, and if we may assume that a
choice of starting ground anywhere along the length of the Red Sea,
and as far as Aden, is at the option of the aeronaut, then the journey,
with only a moderately fast wind, does not appear very formidable.

A few principal routes work out somewhat thus. Starting from
Aden, the Persian Gulf could be reached by balloon in nine hundred
miles. From a point a little below Mecca the breadth of the country
could be crossed with a W.S.W. wind in seven hundred miles, as
equally from a point above Mecca, while from the first of these places,
with a due west wind, the coast could be reached in about a thousand
miles, and from the latter in eight hundred miles. With a north or
south wind an important section of the peninsula could be traversed
in five hundred miles, while from Mascat a yet shorter but service-
able voyage might be carried out.

It will be seen that the Persian Gulf offers peculiar facilities for
the ressue of the balloon at the termination of its voyage ; and the
nature and conditions of the task before the balloonist are the reverse
of discouraging, as an impartial consideration will show ; his special
mode of travel, as compared with others, having distinct and all-
important advantages.

When a vessel is frozen in, her limit is already reached ; when the
last camel is down, the traveller must take his final and hopeless
survey ; but the resources belonging to the balloonist are more elastic
and more reliable. If the wind before which he drifts is inadequate
or contrary, it is within his power to seek other altitudes, with the

s 2

256 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

strong probability of meeting with other currents ; while the pro-
longation of his travel is simply a question of initial cost and cubic
capacity. When Count de la Vaulx landed in Poland he had still a
large quantity of ballast remaining, and it was a debated point with
him whether he should not add to his splendid achievement that of
the further crossing of a desolate Russian steppe.

Coming now to the consideration of practical results which might
be hoped for, and at the same time of the utter hopelessness of
obtaining such results by any other means under political and physical
difficulties at present existing, I may quote some recent and very
valuable notes which have been generously supplied me by an accom-
plished engineer and traveller whose knowledge and experience can
be second to none.

Colonel A. T. Fraser, C.E., in a paper read before the Society of
Arts in 1895, advocated the construction of a railway across Arabia
at the 30th Parallel, and a few years later went to Akabah to deter-
mine where such a railway should cross the valley previous to entering
Arabia, which he considered the chief engineering difficulty. It may
be seen from any good map that this proposed line practically marks
the easiest possible route across the country, as also that where
climatic conditions, as judged by the evidences of habit ability, would
be least severe.

Colonel Fraser, then, learning that Egyptian authorities could not
get him Turkish permission, proceeded to Jerusalem, whence he was
allowed to go to Maan and the 30th Parallel, the Turks, however,
declaring they could not let him go more than one march south of
that, or into the Akabah Pass, on any consideration. It ended in
their granting him the run of Mount Hor for the sake of making
observations, and Colonel Fraser, taking a small camp, remained two
nights ; but the Bedouins saw his lights, and there were signs that it
would have been unsafe to stay longer.

Any consideration of the projected Bagdad Railway would, it is
unnecessary to say, be outside the present discussion. In the opinion
of the secretary of the Ottoman Railway Company the enterprise
would not pay for carriage grease ; and, whether this be so or no, it
suffices to say that Bagdad approaches the 34th Parallel, while the
district which would be opened up is already sufficiently well known
and not calculated to repay development.

As to the feasibility of effecting a balloon inflation at a more
southerly latitude, which should preferably be on the shore of the Red
Sea, and which should lead to a sky passage across a tract of the
peninsula of perhaps the greatest economic value, Colonel Fraser
insists that an ascent from the east of the Red Sea would not be
easy, as it is the sacred province of the Medjar, confirming this opinion
by the fact that he himself could not so much as unroll a map of his
route in a Euphrates valley if there were any Turks about.

1904 TO EXPLORE ARABIA BY BALLOON 257

To meet this difficulty, it may be pointed out that it would not
add more than a few miles to the voyage if the inflation were effected
on the west bank of the Red Sea ; and possibly it might even be
carried out with no great difficulty, and with perfect immunity from
trouble, from one of the many islands in the lower latitudes of that sea:

Lastly, there is conceivably the expedient now being developed of
a self-contained hot-air balloon, for the success of which the air lying
over Southern Arabia would be specially favourable.

It remains to give due attention to such meagre information
regarding Central Arabia as we at present possess, and to consider the
knowledge we might hope to gain by balloon exploration, and here we
would first examine a map prepared from facts supplied by Mr. Hogarth
and others ; and, by way of sample of the country, let us note that a
central patch, marking what we may regard as the heart of the northern
half of the country, and standing, roughly speaking, between the
parallels of 27° and 29°, is claimed to be partially known. Let us,
however, further estimate what this really means. I take it that no
more experienced or adventurous explorer ever penetrated into the
Arabian interior than Mr. Wilfrid S. Blunt, whose route and survey,
drawn Jby his own hand, has been published by the Royal Geographical
Society. To use his own words, he finds this portion of Central
Arabia occupying its old condition of an almost fabulous land, whose
real nature is still a matter of doubt if not of curiosity. For more
than two hundred miles from Kaf to Jof there is no inhabited place,
while it is only along the course of the Wady that there are wells
which attract the Bedouins. Jof itself has some five hundred houses
and palm gardens, and in its whole oasis there may be seven thousand
souls. Thence, with a splendid equipment of camels, it cost the
experienced traveller eleven days to cross the Nefud — a true and
typical desert, and yet so far^from unproductive that its mere red
sand after rain becomes actually covered — so Mr. Blunt believes —
with grass and flowers. More than this, it is, we learn, in one way
blest above all other places — ' fleas do not exist there.' Of that land
Sir H. Rawlinson has said that it is the most romantic in the world,
with a sort of weird mystery about it from the very difficulty of
penetrating it. Mr. Hogarth adds his own testimony as to this
approach to Arabia, asserting that it is only entered with great diffi-
culty and pain by man and beast, so that present-day pilgrims have
almost abandoned the land route for the sea ; and the central plateau
is become more an island than ever. If, now, we pass to examine
the rich and, from its neighbourhood to the seaboard, the more
accessible oasis of Hasa, the land of running streams and many springs,
we find it is but a mere narrow strip, while immediately without to
south and west ' stretches the unknown.' Further yet, when we turn
to the nearer and more luxuriant spots of the south-west corner of
the peninsula, the portal, as it were, of J:he region we seek to reach,

258 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

the alluring plains which ere now have led explorers to hope to gain a
footing, whence they might extend our knowledge — the ' Happy
Arabia ' of ancient geographers — where once the waters were held
back by huge artificial dams, we find ourselves equally baulked, for
we learn that the newest of these works is no later than the sixth
century. All are broken now, and the waters filter away, allowing
the sand to creep once more about the villages.

Enough. We can but avail ourselves of such legendary informa-
tion as is to hand to at least form some allowable conjecture of what
the great unknown has to reveal, and how well worth at least a cur-
sory survey. It appears that from whatever side this region is ap-
proached, tribesmen dwelling on the outskirts have, in place of any
definite information, mere tales of awe and wonder bred of a certain
superstitious terror. It is a wilderness upon which Nature vents her
fiercer moods ; it is a land of wrath where the earth is shaken and the
soil in perpetual unrest. There is a vague talk of saline oases and of
wild palm groves ; but it is said that ere men can reach these the
earth opens to engulf them, or they are swallowed up in subtly shifting
quicksands. The mysteriousness of these reports endows the country
with a species of enchantment, and we can no longer regard the
so-called desert as a mere waste — the more so when we unmistakably
trace up to the limit of where any European has yet trodden how
beneficently Nature has dealt with the land, converting the desert
soil into very gardens of Paradise, and whole regions into luxuriant
fertility. Every thoughtful traveller through the Red Sea must look
out over those blue mountains to the eastward, and feel that beyond
those far and fascinating slopes must lie the hope of new discovery
and fresh scope for enterprise.

Now, if the generally accepted estimate of the upper wind currents
is fairly correct, then, for a preliminary aerial survey, a balloon no
larger than that recently employed by Count de la Vaulx might
suffice, especially if the mode of inflation by hydrogen, artificially
produced on the field, were adopted, and for the rest little more would
be needed than a proper outlook maintained on the eastern shore of
the peninsula. This, of course, is essential, as at the end of the
voyage the aeronaut will need certain efficient assistance. If he
elect to alight on the coast, he will not succeed in doing so without
assuredly having been sighted by the fanatical native, who, to say
the least, is liable to give trouble. If, on the other hand, he prefer
to drop on the water, as many a balloonist has with safety done ere
now, then there must be those afloat and sufficiently near at hand
who, having been watching the balloon in the sky, will have oppor-
tunity to direct their course and ' stand by.'

An initial experiment, altogether inexpensive, comparatively
speaking, and readily carried out, should be made by fleets of pilot
balloons designed to remain aloft in such a climate as the Arabian

1904 TO EXPLORE ARABIA BY BALLOON 259

desert for the time considered sufficient to cross the breadth of the
country, dismissed from chosen positions on the west side, and looked
out for on all the available places on the eastern seaboard. It would
not be necessary that these should be captured. If batches were
dismissed from different points on different pre-arranged dates, and
if after crossing the land any were sighted in the sky, the route that
they had taken, as also the time of transit, would be well determined.

But so far we have not said all that is to be advanced as to the
chances on the side of the aeronaut. Should it appear from pre-
liminary tests that the passage across the peninsula would occupy a
longer — even a far longer — period than we have assumed, the resources
of the aeronaut may yet by special means be rendered fully equal to
meet any enforced detention in the sky. Ordinary aerial voyages,
though they seldom fail through any inanition of the balloon itself,
are nevertheless commonly undertaken without any special econo-
mising of the gas which, for safety against bursting as also for the sake
of a certain indolent convenience, is allowed to escape by natural
diffusion from the neck of the balloon, kept constantly open. A
suitably devised valve, however, might be made to considerably
diminish this waste of gas at the lower aperture ; while from the upper
opening, usually closed with a hinged valve, the ordinary and by no
means negligible amount of leakage can be entirely obviated by a
solid valve of varnished silk, which is firmly bound over the aperture,
and which remains perfectly impervious until finally rent open at
the termination of the voyage. But should it be considered that,
even so, a single balloon would not possess sufficient ' life ' for due
safety, then a method that has been advocated by practical aeronauts,
but never yet needed to be put in force, could be adopted. This con-
sists in starting on the voyage, not with a single balloon, but with
two or more in tandem, and so arranged that when by lapse of time
the main balloon became unduly shrunken it might be replenished by
the gas from a spare balloon, which could then be discarded.

Anyhow, the fact remains that seventy years ago a balloon of no
extraordinary size, and with no special fittings, inflated, moreover,
only by household gas, then but recently adopted for ballooning pur-
poses, carried three passengers and an enormous reserve of ballast
across five hundred miles in eighteen hours. This voyage, conducted
by Charles Green, extended from London to the heart of the German
Forests, and was continued, moreover, through a long, cold winter
night, which must have told considerably against its sustentation,
yet at its termination, dictated only by considerations of convenience,
SD much ballast was still remaining that there can be no reasonable
doubt that with the sun about to rise the length of the journey might
have been doubled if desired. It may further be pointed out that
no balloon voyage soever yet undertaken in Europe or America has
been carried through under conditions which would tend most to its

260 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

prolongation. This is easily made clear, for wheresoever in balloon
travel there is much diversity of country traversed there will also be
frequent variations in the amount of heat radiated into the sky, a
fact which influences the height at which a balloon would ride not
only directly but indirectly also, owing to the vertical currents as-
cending and descending which will be engendered. And this is but
the smaller disturbing element in the sky to be met with commonly
over European or American soil. A greater disturbance in equilibrium
will be found in the diversity of cloud and sunshine assuredly to be
encountered in any extended travel. Passing in and out or even in
the neighbourhood of cloud in the free sky commonly causes great
variation of temperature within the envelope of a balloon, and then
great waste of its life inevitably ensues. This may be readily under-
stood, for any accession of heat causes an immediate rise to higher
altitudes, where, external pressure being diminished, a certain loss of
gas is the consequence, followed presently by a descent of the balloon
below its previous level, which can only be regained by another loss,
equally serious — that of ballast.

Now it is not to be doubted that the above-mentioned frequent
vicissitudes would be practically eliminated in the case of a sky
passage across such country as lower Central Arabia must be supposed
to be, while the withdrawal of the sun's rays at night would simply
entail a steady subsidence of the balloon to some lower altitude, where
the heat steadily radiated from the now adjacent earth would keep
it at a safe, if not at a constant, level without waste of ballast. Thus
an aeronaut of experience should have no difficulty in remaining in
the sky throughout any period that might be rendered necessary.

A further all-important point remains as to whether the aeronaut
voyager could keep in touch with earth by means of wireless tele-
graphy. Of this possibility I am able up to a certain point to speak
from actual experience in a trial specially organised four years ago.
At the hands of all experimenters one main obstacle had been found
in the disturbing influence of earth. Across water success was inva-
riably greater than over land — a fact which, indeed, continues to be
borne out in the most recent practice. It then naturally suggested
itself that a suitable instrument, transported high above the earth's
surface in a balloon, and put in due communication with another
instrument on the ground, might act with far greater advantage than
would similar apparatus operating between two land stations. And
this actually proved to be the case.

The apparatus was designed by Mr. Nevil Maskelyne, who also
presided at the ground station. The trial took place on the occasion
of the garden party of the British Association meeting at Bradford.
Here the ground station was established at one end of Lister Park,
while a small mine with an electric igniter was also constructed, and
thisjt was my task to endeavour to fire five minutes after I had risen

1904 TO EXPLORE ARABIA BY BALLOON 261

into the sky. The balloon carried both receiving and transmitting
instruments, making up a somewhat heavy apparatus, which unfor-
tunately suffered several smart concussions from impact with the
ground during a rough and difficult launching. It required the five
minutes' grace allowed me to restore the working parts of the instru-
ments to something like order, and, this interval having elapsed, I
pressed the button, at the same time calling the attention of my
companion in the car — Sir Edmund Fremantle — to the fact. In
about fifteen seconds the report of the exploded mine was loudly
heard, confirming our own estimate of distance, which amounted to
some three miles.

According to agreement, during the next five minutes the re-
ceiving instrument was now switched into action, and the signalling
of my colleague was at once found to be going forward, and in per-
fect order. Moreover, his messages had in no way deteriorated in
clearness after the balloon had sailed thirty miles away, and was then
settling to earth. On the other hand, it was found that after the
firing of the mine a wire in the transmitting instrument, which had
received damage at the start, had parted, and thus the majority of
the messages from the balloon were lost.

This, as I have stated, was four years ago, and the methods of
wireless telegraphy have so greatly improved since that no shadow of
doubt remains in my mind as to its successful use over very extended
land distances, where one of the stations is a high-flying balloon.
Presumably the chief obstacle would be, as in the case at sea, the
interference of a thunderstorm region ; but though this may be con-
stantly feared amid the storm systems of the Atlantic, the case must
be far otherwise over the arid plains of Arabia.

In the venture thus far sketched out, the advantage that would
accrue if the balloon were equipped with wireless telegraphy instru-
ments must be now apparent, for not only could the traveller con-
tinue to transmit back to his base a connected description of the land
opened up to his view, but in due course he could announce to some
appointed look-out station on the far shore his approximate course,
with a view to timely succour.

JOHN M. BACON.

Coldash, Newbury.

262 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

SOME MAXIMS OF THE
LATE LORD BALLING AND BULWER

IN the month of June 1852 I was sitting at my desk in the Foreign
Office when I was sent for by Lord Malmesbury, recently appointed
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He told me to start as soon
as possible for Florence, to which Legation he had attached me, and
where hands were very much wanted. I started, I think, the next
day, and after rather a difficult journey, now much easier, I arrived at
Florence.

In those days one had to go by railway from Paris to Chalons,
then down the Saone by river to Lyons, where one was transferred
to another boat for the passage down the Rhone to Avignon. At
Avignon one found the railway again, and in three hours arrived at
Marseilles. Thence the steamer went on to Genoa and Leghorn.

On arriving at Florence I was desired to go to the Villa Salviati,
on the hills beyond the Porta San Gallo, a beautiful old villa, subse-
quently purchased by Mario, the great tenor. It was then occupied
by Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, the head of the Mission to the Grand Duke
of Tuscany. I arrived at about ten in the morning, and made the
acquaintance of Sir Henry Bulwer, a most remarkable figure in
British diplomacy. I had before known several of his relations who
lived in Norfolk, and subsequently to this visit, and all through life,
I have been more or less in frequent communication with some
member of the family.

Sir Henry Bulwer had passed, and continued later, a very varied
career, accumulating a vast amount of experience. He had been in
the Life Guards, in diplomacy at Paris, at Brussels, at Constantinople,
where he negotiated a treaty of commerce, at St. Petersburg, and again
at Paris ; and in 1843, only sixteen years after his entrance into diplo-
macy at Berlin as an attache, he was made Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary to the Queen of Spain.

After holding office for five years in Spain, during a period of un-
exampled activity and excitement, Marshal Narvaez had caused him
to be expelled on account of alleged communications with the revolu-
tionists.

At that time the English Government had adopted a tone making

1904 SOME MODERN MAXIMS 263

it very unpopular in foreign retrogressive countries. Lord Palraerston,
then Foreign Minister, whose great career it is not for me to criticise,
had laid down as his policy the advocacy of constitutional against
despotic forms of government in the countries where England had
influence. England had certainly taken great part in the politics of
Spain. She had co-operated openly with the Cristina and theCristino
party for the establishment of the young Queen Isabella, and had
authorised recruiting in England for an armed body known as the
British Auxiliary Legion, organised and commanded by an English
General, Sir De Lacy Evans.

Subsequently to his leaving Spain, Sir Henry Bulwer had been
appointed Envoy Extraordinary at Washington, where he negotiated
and concluded the well-known Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. It was signed
one evening by himself and Mr. Webster over a cigar. From Washington
he was, at his own request, transferred as Minister to the Grand Duke
of Tuscany in 1852. This he resigned in 1855. He did not intend,
however, his retirement to be permanent, and in 1856^he was named
Commissioner, under the Treaty of Paris, to investigate the state of
the Danubian Principalities, and to propose a basis for their future
organisation. It may here be said parenthetically that the object
held in view by Europe was to a certain extent frustrated by
the extraordinary self-control on the part of the inhabitants of
the Principalities during the sittings of the Commission. By the
treaty it had been stipulated that the Principalities of Moldavia
and Wallachia were to be kept separate, the creation of one State
being considered dangerous to the welfare of Turkey. Such were
the lines on which the Commission proceeded, and they carefully
laid down an organisation for each Principality separately. But one
factor had been overlooked. It had been laid down that, when the
constitutions had been drawn up, the people of the two Principali-
ties should each elect their own prince. To the astonishment of
everybody, an unlooked-for development occurred from the action
of the two populations when each Principality elected the same man,
Colonel Couza. Thus, while the stipulations of the treaty had been
carried out, the populations in a legal manner practically consolidated
the two Principalities into one. This took place in 1858, in which
year Sir Henry Bulwer was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary at Constantinople.

He retired from the service in 1865, was elected M.P. for Tarn worth
in 1868, and in 1871 was created Baron Bailing and Bulwer, in the
county of Norfolk, his younger brother, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton,
having previously been raised to the peerage by the title of Lord
Lytton.

I have rather diverged from my original intention to limit my
remarks to the personality of Sir Henry Bulwer as he then was at
Florence. The political situation was difficult. Tuscany was occupied

264 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

by the Austrians, who, notwithstanding Lord Palmerston's retire-
ment, still associated England and her representative with his policy.
These difficulties had been increased by an assault on a British subject,
Mr. Erskine Mather, who stood in the way of an Austrian officer
marching with his regiment. The officer cut him down with his sword,
and the relations between Great Britain and Austria became very
strained. This incident was followed by many others. It was related
that water accidentally thrown out of a window by a tradesman had
fallen on the Grand Duke, who was passing. The tradesman, horrified,
rushed before the carriage, and, falling on his knees, begged for forgive-
ness. The Grand Duke replied kindly, adding, ' It is lucky for the
Minister I am not an Englishman, or there would certainly have been
a question with the British Legation.' The Legation was then also
engaged in advocating the cause of the Madiai, an old couple
imprisoned on the accusation of proselytism.

W Much bitterness was avoided by the tact, amiable bearing, and
profound knowledge of character of Sir Henry Bulwer. At this time
my colleagues at the Legation were Mr. Lytton, the son of Sir Edward
Lytton, who had been attached to his uncle's Mission at Washington,
and had come to Florence after his father's victorious return for
Hertfordshire as a Protectionist. He was later Minister at Lisbon,
Governor-General of India, and Ambassador at Paris, where he died.
The other was Mr. Fenton, who had for many years followed Sir Henry
Bulwer as his secretary. He still survives, after an honourable and
useful career at many posts, having elected to reside at the Hague,
the scene of his latest employment, and where he possesses many
friends.

Florence had always been a favourite post for statesmen requiring
repose, and Sir Henry Bulwer was succeeded in those functions by
Lord Normanby, who had been Viceroy of Ireland, a Minister in
various English Governments, and Ambassador at Paris. The family
of Bulwer is remarkably accomplished and gifted. Sir Henry Bulwer's
elder brother, though living quietly as a country squire in Norfolk,
was no doubt a man of great capacity, which could very usefully have
been employed in the public service. He left three sons — one, like his
father, an exemplary county magnate ; the second a very distin-
guished general officer of the army ; while his younger brother, Sir
Henry Bulwer, has made a great reputation in several important
governorships, amongst others Natal and Cyprus.

Lord Dalling himself had a most remarkable personal charm, and,
though he had many adversaries and critics, few could withstand the
attraction of his manner and the interest of his conversation. He
had lived with very remarkable men — with Prince Talleyrand, Prince
Lieven, Count d'Orsay, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Melbourne, Lord
Palmerston, besides many other English statesmen.

In his conversation he always appeared, and I believe naturally,

1904 SOME MODERN MAXIMS 265

to take a great personal interest in those with whom he was speaking.
He also took a joke against himself in good part. At Florence both
he and I lived on intimate terms with Charles Lever. The latter
could not refrain from noticing the weaknesses of his friends, and in
one of his novels he ascribed to a diplomatist, by name, I think, Sir
Horace Upton, one of Sir Henry Bulwer's characteristics, viz., always
thinking himself ill and taking medicine. A long time after we had
separated officially I called on Sir Henry Bulwer in London. While
talking he rang for his valet to give him a dose, saying to me, ' I can
never take a pill without thinking of that confounded novel of Lever's
and Sir Horace Upton.' I did not know he had read the work.

The great peculiarity of his conversation was that he had evidently
codified his life in fixed axioms"andj)roverbial sayings. Two or three
of these now occur to me. He used to say, ' Whenever you speak
with a man older than yourself, always recollect that, however stupid
he may be, he thinks himself wiser than you because he is older.'
He would quote a saying of Talleyrand, which was, ' Acknowledge
the receipt of a book from the author at once : this relieves you of
the necessity of saying whether you have read it.' He laid down as
a rule, quoting it from somebody else, I believe Lord de Ros, that you
should never cut anyone, as your so doing deprives you of an oppor-
tunity of saying disagreeable things to him. He would also say,
* Never discuss, because neither you nor your adversary will give in
to the other, and he will ever consider you a stupid fellow for not
agreeing with him.' He denned the advantage of matrimony as this :
' That a wife will tell her husband truths which nobody else would
venture to tell, and thus correct many of his defects.' He once said
to me, and I think his observation is correct, that intimate friends
are always about the same height. This he had found in his own
case, and it is difficult for a tall man to be intimate with a short man,
as they cannot talk confidentially when walking together.

In 1864 a little social paper was started called the Owl. The
contributors were men of considerable importance in politics, society,
and literature. It was devised by Lord Glenesk, Mr. Evelyn Ashley,
and Mr. Cameron of Lochiel, assisted later by Mr. Laurence Oliphant,
and administered by the first with his well-known tact and discrimi-
nation during the seven years of its existence. I do not know how
far it is advisable or legitimate to enter into any details of this inter-
esting publication, but suffice it to say that its pages occasionally
contained papers by Lord Dalling. Amongst other contributions,
he sent in a paper of proverbs ; these were not considered adapted
to the columns of the Owl, inasmuch as they did not relate to any
passing circumstances of the day, but were of an abstract and general
character. Shortly before Lord Balling's death I paid him a visit,
first at Hyeres, later at Trieste. Here we stayed with Charles Lever,
who, as has been mentioned, had been a friend of both of us from

266 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

Florence days. He was on his way to Egypt, from which journey he
never returned home, as he died on the 23rd of May, 1872, if I recollect
right, at Naples on his way home. Lord Bailing gave to me his
rejected proverbs, begging me some day, when I found an opportunity,
to publish them. This I now do, in the hope that they may be admired
by others as much as I have admired them.

H. DRUMMOND WOLFF.

MAXIMS.

The maxims of wisdom are the pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope : they
remain for ever unchanged and in the same case ; but every age shakes them
into a new combination of colours.

In nine cases out of ten, a man who cannot explain his ideas is the dupe of
his imagination in thinking he has any.

To say to a man when you ask him a favour, ' Don't do it if it incon-
veniences you,' is a mean way of saving yourself from an obligation, and
depriving another of the merit of conferring one.

The flattery of one's friends is required as a dram to keep up one's spirits
against the injustice of one's enemies.

Do not trust to your railroads, nor your telegraphs, nor your schools, as a
test of civilisation ; the real refinement of a nation is to be found in the justice
of its ideas and the courtesy of its manners.

The knowledge of the most value to us is that which we gain so insensibly
and gradually as not to perceive we have acquired it until its effect becomes
visible in our conduct.

The quiet of a city is the quiet that one most appreciates, for the sense of
quiet in the country is lost by want of contrast.

You will never be trusted if you do more to gain an enemy than to serve a
friend.

You are not obliged to give your hand to anyone ; but never give your
finger.

The way to be always respected is to be always in earnest.

When you notice a vague accusation you give it a reality and turn a shadow
into a substance.

You cannot show a greater want of tact than in attempting to console a
person by making light of his grief.

. One of .the charms of an intimacy between two persons of different sexes is
that the man loves the woman for qualities he does not envy, and the woman
appreciates the man for qualities she does not pretend to possess.

The best way of effacing a failure is to obtain a success.

.. .Friendship .and; familiarity are twin sisters, very much alike, but rarely

agreeing.,., .,•.;..-,

Whilst a second- rUte man is considering how he should take the lead, a first-
rate man takes it.

1901 SOME MODERN MAXIMS 267

There are a great many idle men constantly busy about something which
they know is not the thing that ought to occupy them.

When you go into mixed company, the air you should carry with you there
is that of fearing no one and wishing to offend no one.

Religious persecution is the effe ct of an exaggerated vanity rendered ferocious
by the best intentions.

If you expect a disagreeable thing, meet it and get rid of it as soon as you
can ; if you expect anything agreeable, you need not be in such a hurry, for the
anticipation of pain is pain — the anticipation of pleasure, pleasure.

The practical man is he who turns life to the best account for himself; the
good man, he who teaches others how to do so.

Only let those know you intimately who speak well of you ; and only know
intimately those of whom you can speak well.

An obstinate man dies in maintaining a post which is utterly defenceless. A
resolute man does not abandon his fortress as long as he can bring a gun to bear
on the enemy.

You may be gentle in your dealings with men just as you can be firm. Never
say ' no ' from pride, nor ' yes ' from weakness.

The great art of speaking and writing is that of knowing what to leave
out.

It is very difficult to get stupid people to change their opinions, for they find
it so hard to get an idea that they don't like to lose one.

To despair is to bury one's self alive.

We have never won a complete victory when we have not gained the good
will of those we have subdued.

If you can associate your career with the ideas of your epoch, you will be
sympathised with if you fail, and forgiven if you succeed.

A dwarf, a hunchback, and a natural son are never at their ease in the
world, for they entered it with a sore which some vanity is always rubbing.

The best trait in a man's character is an anxiety to serve those who have
obliged him once and can do so no more.

Always go out of your way to serve a friend ; never to avoid a foe.

Some men ride a steeplechase after fortune ; some seek it leisurely on the
beaten track ; and some hope to attain it by a new path which they think they
have discovered. The first arrive rapidly or not at all ; the second arrive surely,
but generally too late ; the last usually lose their way, but are so charmed with
their road that they forget the object of their journey.

Friendships are founded on character ; intimacy, on habits.

You are no better for being well thought of by those you live with if the
world thinks ill of them, and you gain nothing by living with those of whom
the world thinks well if they think ill of you.

Nothing is so common as to make a great blunder in order to remedy a small
one.

268 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

A Spanish proverb says that ' He who makes himself all sugar, the flies will
eat him up ; ' but another observes, ' He who makes himself all vinegar will
never catch any flies.'

Striking actions make reputations ; useful ones, a career.

A lady at Court assured the Prince de Conti in his later days that he was as
young as ever. ' No,' he said, ' Madame, and I will tell you how I discovered
it. Formerly, when I paid your sex compliments, they were taken for declara-
tions ; now, when I make a lady a declaration, she takes it for a compliment.'
We can always ascertain what we really are if we do not blind ourselves as to
the effect we produce.

Superior men rarely underrate the talents of those who are inferior to them.
Inferior men nearly always underrate the talents of those whose abilities are
above their own ; for the tendency of genius is to raise to its own height, that
of mediocrity to depress to its own level.

You cannot do anyone more good than by trying unsuccessfully to do him
an injury.

Man is by nature a hunter, who cares more for the sport of the chase than the
prey he is in quest of. This is why the objects we seek after are not to be esti-
mated by the pains we take to procure them. People say, ' Why give yourself
so much trouble for so small a pleasure ? ' They forget that the trouble is the
main part of the pleasure.

Bad temper and bad manners are equally bad habits, which we indulge in
because they rather affect others than ourselves. Few find it difficult to govern
the first when they are in the presence of those whom it is their interest not to
offend, and almost everyone can correct the last when he is in the presence of
those he is desirous to please.

A man's expressions of gratitude are according to the service he receives ;
his feelings of gratitude according to the manner in which the service was
rendered.

Vanity shows itself in a person in two ways : by the endeavour to please, and
by the confidence that he does please. The first makes an agreeable impression,
the latter quite the reverse.

The worst thing that you can do, if you wish to be well with the world, is to
let it see that you are afraid of losing its good opinion.

If you begin by thinking that nothing can be done without difficulty, you
will end by doing everything with facility.

Many people who seem clever are merely plated with the cleverness of
others.

Nothing is so focllsh as to be wise out of season.

Make anyone think he has been clever or agreeable, and he will think you
have been so.

1904

PEPYS AND MERCER

PEPYS as the statesman, the connoisseur, the musician, or the man of
letters, is full of interest for the student ; but it is Pepys the man who
chiefly charms the fancy of ordinary folk. Not that his character
was either powerful or without blemish. On the contrary, in the
strange medley of qualities which his Diary reveals, we find resolution
and cowardice, integrity and meanness, selfishness and benevolence,
cultivated tastes and vulgar aspirations, religious earnestness and
moral laxity, linked in a bewildering companionship. But so far as
it extends, the Diary tells the story of a life which was lived to the
utmost, and the intense humanity which throbs through it makes
even its smallest details tingle. And many of the details are small
enough. A greater man would have passed them over in silence ; a
smaller man would have presented them as lifeless trivialities. But
everything connected with himself was full of importance to Pepys,
and thus the minutiae of the Diary seem to have caught fire at the
flame of his personality. This has given to the minor characters an
interest which they would not otherwise have acquired. Though we
know them only imperfectly, they are real men and women to us, not
mere descriptions. The central figure does not throw the others into
shade, but kindles them into brightness. Yet the illumination is
partial only. So far as they enter into his life of the moment, they
are caught up and carried along by its story ; but let them once drop
out of it, and they pass straightway into oblivion. They shine, but
not with their own light ; and, though not devoid of individual interest,
their value lies rather in what they reveal to us of the life and sur-
roundings of Pepys himself.-

Among these lesser figures Mary Mercer stands conspicuous. She
became Mrs. Pepys' maid in the autumn of 1664, and her intimacy
with the family for the next four years covered the brightest and
most interesting part of the period with which the Diary deals. The
previous experience of the Pepyses in their domestic servants had been
chequered. Jane Wayneman, their servant when the Diary opens
(January 1, 1659), was a single-handed ' general,' and it was not
till some months later, in November 1660, that Mrs. Pepys could
indulge in the luxury of a maid of her own. Pepys' own sister, Paulina,
VOL. LVI— No. 330. 269 T

270 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

then came to them in this capacity. Such a situation is at best
beset with difficulties, and as a matter of fact the experiment was
not a success. Pepys himself attempted it with many misgivings,
and out of pure benevolence to his sister. But ' Pall ' was not an
amiable character. He was ' afeard of her ill temper ' ; and this was
not the worst of her faults, for, even as a guest, she had been caught
pilfering. He determined to keep her in her place from the first,
and refused to let her sit at table with himself and his wife, ' so that
she may not expect it hereafter ' from him. However, she soon
grew lazy, and demoralised the other maid, Jane. Matters finally
came to a head on the 25th of August 1661, and after a stormy inter-
view, at which he ' brought down her proud spirit,' it was arranged
that she should retire to his father's house at Brampton in Hunting-
donshire, whither she departed on the 5th of September 1661, ' crying
exceedingly,' with 20s. and some excellent advice from Pepys. Some
others followed in rather rapid succession, none of whom were of any
note except the brilliant Gosnell, whose term of service, however,
was only four or five days — from the 4th to the 9th of December
1662. Ostensibly she was withdrawn by her uncle, Justice Jiggins,
who required her services for some special business. But from Pepys'
account of the matter she seems to have expected more liberty than
she would have obtained in his household, and probably was not
unwilling to give up her place. Shortly afterwards we hear of her
appearance on the stage, where she rose to considerable distinction.
By this time the number of servants in the house had increased to at
least three ; but Mrs. Pepys seems to have managed without a maid
of her own till Mary Ashwell was engaged in this capacity on the
12th of March 1662, at 4Z. a year. Pepys considered these wages
(equivalent to about 181. of our money) high ; but on the 6th of October
1666, he speaks of a maid who asked 20Z. a year, and who, though
coming with a great reputation, turned out to be ' a tawdry wench who
would take 81.' It is not quite easy to determine whether it was
servants' wages or Pepys' ideas which had risen in the interval of four
years. Pretty, witty, a good dancer, and ' with a very fine carriage '
which put his wife's to shame, Ashwell delighted Pepys with her
merry talk, and still more with her musical ability. Before long,
however, Mrs. Pepys, stimulated perhaps by the ' very fine carriage,'
became jealous, reproaching her husband and rating her maid.
Domestic relations became very strained, and once, much to Pepys'
annoyance, there was an altercation between them at Hinchingbrooke
House. At length they came to blows, and soon afterwards Ashwell
left, on the 25th of August 1663.

Incidents of this kind, though somewhat startling to us, were by

no means unusual in the domestic life of the period;1 Mrs. Pepys

seems to have used her fists freely in her household management,

though, judging by her portrait, the punishment can hardly have

1 Domestic Life under the Stuarts, by Elizabeth Godfrey, p. 209.

1904 PEPYS AND MERCER 271

been very painful. On the llth of January 1663, Pepys, being
angered at the idleness of his servants, directs his wife ' to beat at
least the little girl ' ; and on a subsequent occasion the same or a
similar small culprit was punished rather mercilessly for the sins of the
others (February 19, 1664) :

At supper, hearing by accident of rny rnayds their letting in a rogueing-
Scotch woman that haunts the office, to helpe them to washe and secure in our
house, and that very lately, I fell mightily out, and made my wife, to the
disturbance of the house and neighbours, to beat our little girle, and then we
shut her down into the cellar, and there she lay all night.

He himself frequently chastises his boy, and he once committed

an atrocious assault upon a woman servant (April 12, 1667) :

/
Coming homeward again, saw my door and hatch open, left so by Luce, our

cook mayde, which so vexed me that I did give her a kick in our entry and
offered a blow at her.

Nemesis, however, was present in the shape of Sir William Perm's
footboy, who witnessed the incident, and as Pepys feared (pro-
bably with good reason) would ' be telling the family of it.' Even
Mrs. Pepys was not safe from corporal admonishment, and he once
came to blows with her in bed — an arena which must have seriously
cramped the style of the combatants (October 7, 1664) :

Lay pretty while with some discontent abed, even to the having bad words
with my wife, and blows too, about the ill- serving of our victuals yesterday ;
but all ended in love.

Sometimes, however, she was not so easily appeased (December 19,
1664) :

Going to bed betimes last night we waked betimes, and from our people's
being forced to take the key to go out to light a candle, I was very angry and
begun to find fault with my wife, for not commanding her servants as she ought.
Thereupon she giving me some cross answer, I did strike her over her left eye
such a blow as the poor wretch did cry out and was in great pain, but yet her
spirit was such as to endeavour to bite and scratch me.

So again (July 12, 1667) :

So home, and there find my wife in a dogged humour for my not dining at
home, and I did give her a pull by the nose and some ill words, which she pro-
voked me to by something she spoke, that we fell extraordinarily out, insomuch
that I going to the office to avoid further anger, she followed me in a devilish
manner thither, and with much ado I got her into the garden out of hearing'to
prevent shame, and so home, and by degrees I found it necessary to calme her..

Our natural indignation at Pepys' behaviour is half paralysed by
the indifference with which it is narrated. Cuffs and blows seem
incidents of domestic life too ordinary for comment, and, though
Pepys displays his usual sensitiveness to outside opinion on the

T 2

272 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

subject, internal family relations do not appear to have been dis-
turbed by them. But it shows incidentally that, in reference to women,
the chivalry of the day still savoured of the age when woman was
' half wife, half chattel.'

Five centuries before Pepys the Troubadours had preached, and
to a certain extent effected, the deliverance of woman from this
thraldom ; but even they could not wholly shake off the instincts of
the old Adam.

My boy, if you wish to make constant your Venus,

Attend to the plan I disclose —
Her first naughty word you meet with a menace,

Her next — drop your fist on her nose.

RUTHERFORD, TJie Tioubalou -s, p. 129.

This was the advice of Rambaud of Vaquieras in the twelfth
century, and it was evidently not out of date at the end of the seven-
teenth.

However, to return to the story. After Ashwell's departure,
Mrs. Pepys remained without a lady's-maid for more than a year, til],
t>n the 8th of September 1664, Mary Mercer came to fill her place.
Her engagement had been a matter of much consideration by the
Pepys. On the 28th of July 1664 he writes

My present posture is thus : my wife in the country and my niayde Besse
with her and all quiett there. I am endeavouring to find a woman for her to
my mind, and above all one that understands musique, especially singing. I am
the willinger to keepe one because I am in good hopes to get 2 or 3001. per
annum extraordinary by the business of the victualling of Tangier.

But as he further tells us :

I do now live very prettily at home, being most seriously, quietly, and
neatly served by my two mayds Jane and Sue, with both of whom I am
mightily well pleased.

It was accordingly with some misgivings that he ventured to
disturb this peaceful state of things ; and even after Mercer had been
definitely engaged, he writes on the 29th of August 1664 :

But I must remember that, never since I was a housekeeper, I ever lived so
•quietly, without any noise or one angry word almost, as I have done since my
present mayds Besse, Jane, and Susan came and were together. Now I have
taken a boy and am taking a woman, I pray God we may not be worse, but
I will observe it.

The boy was Tom Edwards, also a songster, ' having been bred
in the Kings Chappell these four years.' Pepys engaged him as
a clerk, but no doubt with an eye to his musical capabilities. These
gave great satisfaction to his master, who writes of him on the 9th of
September 1664 : ' My boy, a brave boy, sings finely, and is the most
pleasant boy at present, while his ignorant boy's tricks last, that I

1904 PEPYS AND MEECEE 273

ever saw.' The last part of this eulogy may sound strange to us,
but Pepys had a large heart.

Mercer came on the recommendation of Will Hewer, Pepys' clerk
and factotum, but the situation had almost been promised to ' a
kinswoman ' of his friend Mr. Blagrave, who seems to have been
prevented at the last moment by ill-health from accepting it. Pepys
was at first not over-anxious to engage Mercer, for a reason which
illustrates his sensitiveness to public opinion (August 1, 1664) :

So home, and there talked long with Will about the young woman of his
family which he spoke of for to live with my wife, but though she hath very
many good qualitys, yet being a neighbour's child and young and not very staid,
I dare not venture of having her, because of her being able to spread any report
of our family upon any discontent among the heai*t of our neighbours. So that
my dependence is upon Mr. Blagrave.

So too in the following entry (August 31, 1664) :

She is one that Will finds out for us, and understands a little musique, and"
and I think will please us well, only her friends live too near us.

And a similar fear of social criticism sharpens the sting of remorse
for his behaviour to the ' cook mayde Luce ' already mentioned. But
these doubts speedily vanished on the arrival of Mercer, who rose at
once into high favour. Probably ' the strange slavery that I stand
in to beauty, that I value nothing near it ' (September 6, 1664),
contributed to her esteem in her master's eyes ; but independently
of her looks, she undoubtedly possessed some attractive social qualities.
Unlike poor Pall, she is admitted from the first to her master's dinner
table (September 9, 1664) :

Mercer dined with us at table, this being her first dinner in my house. After
dinner left them and to White Hall, where a small Tangier Committee, and so
back again home, and there my wife and Mercer and Tom and I sat till eleven
at night, singing and fiddling, and a great joy it is to see me master of so
much pleasure in my house, that it is and will be still, I hope, a constant
pleasure to me to be at home. The girle plays pretty well upon the harpsicord,
but only ordinary tunes, but hath a good hand ; sings a little, but hath a good,
voyce and eare.

Pepys must have made no secret of his admiration, for Mrs. Pepya
very soon took occasion to interfere (September 19, 1664) :

Up, my wife and I having a little anger about her woman alread}', she
thinking that I take too much care of her at table to mind her (my wife) of
cutting for her, but it soon over.

Pepys, however, took the hint, and evidently became more dis-
creet. On the 29th of September 1664 he finds Mercer playing on
her ' Vyall,' ' So I to the Vyall and singing till late.' But with this
exception we hear no more of music with her till the llth of November
1664 ; and for many months afterwards, so far as appears from the

274 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Aug.

Diary, there was nothing more than the most ordinary intercourse
between master and maid. Moreover, in May 1665 the plague made
its appearance, and on the 5th of July 1665 Mrs. Pepys and two of
her maids leave London for Woolwich, her husband following early
in September, and taking up his quarters at Greenwich, whither his
office had been removed in the middle of August. Notwithstanding
the natural anxieties of the time, he continued, as usual, to enjoy
himself. He admits in his retrospect of the year (December 31, 1665)
to the ' great store of dancings we have had at my cost (which I
was willing to indulge myself and my wife) at my lodgings.' Mercer
figured in these entertainments and distinguished herself as a dancer.
On the llth of October 1665 we hear of

& fine company at my lodgings at Woolwich, where my wife and Mercer, and
Mrs. Barbara danced, and mighty merry we were, but especially at Mercer's
dancing a jigg, which she does the best I ever did see, having the most natural
way of it, and keeps time the most perfectly I ever did see.

This corroborates his previous testimony to her good ear.

About this time, however, began Mrs. Pepys' quarrels with Mercer,
•which broke out periodically afterwards. Their first serious dispute
•occurred towards the end of August (August 29, 1665) :

In the morning waking, among other discourse my wife began to tell me
the difference between her and Mercer, and that it was only from restraining
her to gad abroad to some Frenchmen that were in the town, which I do not
wholly yet hi part believe, and for my quiet would not enquire into.

Probably Pepys was right in concluding that the charge had a
foundation in fact, though his wife's account of it might be rather
highly coloured ; and every man must sympathise with his truly
masculine cowardice in keeping clear of the quarrel altogether.

Mrs. Pepys returned to